Magnetic hysteresis properties of interacting and noninteracting micron-sized magnetite produced by electron beam lithography

Abstract

The magnetic hysteresis properties for well-defined micron-sized magnetite samples produced by electron beam lithography (EBL) are presented. In addition to measuring standard hysteresis parameters, first-order reversal curve (FORC) diagrams are also reported. EBL produces samples that consist of particles with very tightly constrained size distributions, and spatial distributions that govern the degree of intergrain magnetostatic interactions are accurately controlled and known. Thus EBL samples are significantly better characterized compared to powdered samples, which are conventionally used to characterize the size dependency of magnetic hysteresis properties of naturally occurring magnetic minerals. Compared with the hysteresis properties of powdered samples of the same nominal sizes, EBL samples display more multidomain-like (MD) behavior. The influence of magnetostatic interactions fields on hysteresis properties is analyzed. When magnetostatic interactions are effectively in only one direction, the hysteresis properties become more single domain-like, and if the interactions are in more than one direction, hysteresis becomes more MD-like, in agreement with numerical models.