Growth of low-dimensional magnetic nanostructures on an insulator

Abstract

Iron nanometer-scaled wires and ultrathin films have been successfully prepared on an insulating NaCl(001) single-crystal surface by electron beam deposition using different growth conditions. In situ noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) shows that the heights and widths of the wires, which are formed by a one-dimensional array of clusters aligned on top of the step edges, are very uniform. The films are atomically flat and are formed due to a high nucleation density achieved through a low temperature growth procedure.

Preparation of nanometer-scale iron dots on insulating layer

“…This feature may be due to the high roughness (see line profile of Fig. 2) of the MgO underlayer since the Fe dots may grow preferentially on step edges [19].…”

“…However, given that they are only based on metals, these systems cannot be used to observe Coulomb blockade phenomena. Recently, Gai et al [19,20] achieved narrow size distributions by preparing Fe dots on NaCl (100) substrates. One-dimensional chains of Fe clusters were prepared since the dots preferentially grow on the edges of NaCl terraces.…”

Imaging the real shape of nanoclusters in scanning force microscopy

“…The force microscope in its dynamic mode ͑dynamic SFM͒ offers the possibility to image surfaces with a true atomic resolution, [11][12][13] and indeed, to a greater extent in recent years, the dynamic SFM has been used for the imaging of nanoclusters on many types of surfaces. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] However, also in dynamic SFM, the tip-surface convolution strongly reduces the resolution during imaging of the nanoclusters in the standard topography mode. 19,25,26 Furthermore, the scanning speed is limited and does not exceed speeds much higher than ϳ1 − 2 Hz, which does not permit time-dependent measurements on short time scales--a particular problem for biophysical SPM studies.…”

Atomic Structure of Alkali Halide Surfaces

“…The enhanced interaction at low-coordinated sites has many impacts like catalytic activity or nucleation of clusters after evaporation of materials onto the surface. The latter has been used for the imaging of steps using replica techniques, and is still of interest for the study of clusters on non-interacting substrates (see for example a recent study of the growth of magnetic clusters on NaCl [15]). Pushing the resolution of dynamic force microscopy to the atomic scale provides real-space insights of such enhanced interactions.…”