New magnetic nanostructures thanks to 3D printing
An international team led by Amalio Fernández-Pacheco, a researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon, INMA, a joint institute of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza, has obtained for the first time 3D magnetic nanostructures with complex topological states. These materials open the way to new applications in quantum computing, nanoscale microscopy and the creation of advanced smart materials. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The use of 3D printing techniques for prototyping has been a breakthrough in science and engineering due to its versatility and its ability to produce parts and geometries that are impossible to create using other manufacturing methods.
In this work, the use of advanced 3D nanoimprinting techniques based on electron microscopes has made it possible to create a magnetic double helix structure a few tens of nanometres in size (1 metre contains 1 billion nanometres). This structure was then investigated using X-ray nano-tomography in a synchrotron, a large scientific infrastructure that allows imaging of materials at nanometre resolution. As Amalio Fernández-Pacheco comments: “thanks to the 3D images obtained of the magnetic state of the structure, we have been able to observe that its geometry (very similar to the double helix of DNA) gives rise to magnetic states that allow us to control the magnetic field formed in the space between the strands of the double helix at will”.
The work, in which Aurelio Hierro-Rodríguez, a member of the Department of Physics at the University of Oviedo, has played a key role, is a very important contribution in the field of 3D Nanomagnetism, with great interest for the development of magnetic storage and information processing devices, which break with the current paradigm based on 2D architectures. As Aurelio Hierro points out, “the qualitative leap from two to three spatial dimensions has effects not only on the density of information that can be stored (more information can be stored in a fat book with many pages (3D) than in a single sheet of paper (2D)), but the very physics and phenomenology of magnetic systems changes, opening up a range of new possibilities to be explored and exploited”.
Specifically, the results of the work, which has managed to configure the local magnetic field at the nanoscale, has allowed the creation of textures with implications for imaging techniques, magnetic confinement systems and the development of new functional materials.
The work has been developed through an international collaboration between researchers from the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow (UK), the University of Oviedo, the University of Vienna (Austria), the Max Plank Institute in Dresden (Germany) and the Swiss Light Source Institute (Switzerland).
The project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 101001290).
Link to the publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-021-01027-7.
Photograph of Amalio Fernández-Pacheco
21/12/2021
