Self-Assembly of Nanometer-Scale Magnetic Dots with Narrow Size Distributions on an Insulating Substrate

Zheng Gai, Biao Wu, J. P. Pierce, G. A. Farnan, Dajun Shu, Mu Wang, Zhenyu Zhang, and Jian Shen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 235502 – Published 14 November 2002

Abstract

The self-assembly of iron dots on the insulating surface of NaCl(001) is investigated experimentally and theoretically. Under proper growth conditions, nanometer-scale magnetic iron dots with remarkably narrow size distributions can be achieved in the absence of a wetting layer. Furthermore, both the vertical and lateral sizes of the dots can be tuned with the iron dosage without introducing apparent size broadening, even though the clustering is clearly in the strong coarsening regime. These observations are interpreted using a phenomenological mean-field theory, in which a coverage-dependent optimal dot size is selected by strain-mediated dot-dot interactions.

Received 8 May 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.235502

Authors & Affiliations

Zheng Gai^1,2, Biao Wu^3,1, J. P. Pierce^4,1, G. A. Farnan¹, Dajun Shu^5,6, Mu Wang^6,5, Zhenyu Zhang^1,5, and Jian Shen¹

¹Solid State Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831
²Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
³Department of Physics, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712
⁴Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
⁵International Center for Quantum Structures, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China
⁶Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, People’s Republic of China

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Issue

Vol. 89, Iss. 23 — 2 December 2002

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