High-yield fabrication of 60 nm Permalloy nanodiscs in well-defined magnetic vortex state for biomedical applications.

Permalloy disc structures in magnetic vortex state constitute a promising new type of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications. They present high saturation magnetisation and lack of remanence, which ease the remote manipulation of the particles by magnetic fields and avoid the problem of agglomeration, respectively. Importantly, they are also endowed with the capability of low-frequency magneto-mechanical actuation. This effect has already been shown to produce cancer cell destruction using functionalized discs, about 1 µm in diameter, attached to the cell membrane. Here, Permalloy nanodiscs down to 60 nm in diameter are obtained by hole-mask colloidal lithography, which is proved to be a cost-effective method for the uniform patterning of large substrate areas, with a high production yield of nanostructures. The characterisation of the magnetic behaviour of the nanodiscs, complemented with micromagnetic simulations, confirms that they present a very well defined magnetic vortex configuration, unprecedented, to our knowledge, for nanostructures of this size prepared by a high-yield method. The successful detachment of the gold-covered nanodiscs from the substrate is also demonstrated by the use of sacrificial layers.

Influence of the interactions on the magnetotransport properties of Fe-Ag granular thin films.

Fe(x)Ag(100-x) granular thin films, 25 < or = x < or = 40, have been prepared by DC-Magnetron sputtering deposition. These samples are composed of small Fe nanoparticles (2.5-3 nm) embedded in an Ag matrix, and their size remains nearly constant with increasing Fe content. A crossover in the collective magnetic behaviour of the samples near x = 35, had been previously reported for these samples. In this article, we show that the transport and magnetotransport properties are clearly correlated with these magnetic behaviours, and that the resistivity, the magnetoresistance and the Hall resistivity depend on the nature of the most relevant interactions, dipolar or direct exchange, as a function of the thermal evolution and the Fe content.

High performance magnetoimpedance in FeNi/Ti nanostructured multilayers with opened magnetic flux.

Magnetic [FeNi (170 nm)/Ti (6 nm)]3/Cu (L(cu) = 250 or 500 nm)/[Ti (6 nm)/FeNi (170 nm)]3 multilayers were designed with focus on high frequency applications. They were deposited onto glass or a microfluidic system compatible flexible Ciclo Olefin Copolymer substrate and comparatively tested. A maximum sensitivity for the total impedance of 110%/Oe was obtained for a driving current frequency of 30 MHz for [FeNi/Ti]3/Cu (L(cu) = 500 nm)/[Ti/FeNi]3 multilayers deposited onto a glass substrate and 45%/Oe for a driving current frequency of 65 MHz for the same multilayers deposited onto the flexible polymer substrate, a very promising result for applications. The possibility of using flexible substrate/[FeNi/Ti],/Cu/[Ti/FeNi]3 multilayers as MI pressure-sensitive elements was also demonstrated.

Influence of temperature on structure and magnetic properties of exchange coupled TbCo/FeNi bilayers.

Among amorphous films of rare earth-transition metal (RE-TM) alloys as exchange-biasing layers in magnetoresistive heads and spin-valve sensors, the amorphous Tb-Co films have most high practical potential. In the present work the influence of the temperature and the heat treatment parameters on the structure and magnetic properties was studied for exchange bias FeNi/Tb35Co65 bilayers annealed in vacuum or a nitrogen flow. A simple explanation of the dependence of the magnetic properties on the temperature and the heat treatment parameters connected with structural changes in each one of the layers was proposed.

Modelling of magnetoimpedance response of thin film sensitive element in the presence of ferrogel: Next step toward development of biosensor for in-tissue embedded magnetic nanoparticles detection.

In-tissue embedded magnetic nanoparticle (MNPs) detection is one of the most interesting cases for cancer research. In order to understand the origin, the limits and the way of improvement of magnetic biosensor sensitivity for the detection of 3D mezoscopic distributions of MNPs, we have developed a magnetoimpedance biosensor prototype with a [Cu (3 nm)/FeNi(100 nm)]5/Cu(500 nm)/[FeNi(100 nm)/Cu(3 nm)]5 rectangular sensitive element. Magnetoimpedance (MI) responses were measured with and without polyacrylamide ferrogel layer mimicking natural tissue in order to evaluate stray fields of embedded MNPs of γ-Fe2O3 iron oxide. A model for MI response based on a solution of Maxwell equations with Landau-Lifshitz equation was developed in order to understand the origin of the prototype sensitivity which reached 1.3% of ΔZ/Z per 1% of MNPs concentration by weight. To make this promising technique useful for magnetically labeled tissue detection, a synthesis of composite gels with MNPs agglomerates compactly located inside pure gel and their MI testing are still necessary.