Issue 37, 2020

Assembly of nanocube super-structures directed by surface and magnetic interactions

Abstract

We study the stabilisation of clusters and lattices of cuboidal particles with long-ranged magnetic dipolar and short-ranged surface interactions. Two realistic systems were considered: one with magnetisation oriented in the [001] crystallographic direction and the other with magnetisation along the [111] direction. We have studied magnetic nanocube clusters first in the limit of T = 0 K intending to elucidate the structural genesis of low energy configurations and then analysed finite-temperature behaviour of the same systems in simulations. Our results demonstrate that dipolar coupling can stabilise nanoparticle assemblies with cubic, planar, and linear arrangements seen previously in experiments. While attractive surface energy supports the formation of super-cubes, repulsion results in the elongated structures in the form of rods and chains. We observe the stabilisation of the ferromagnetic planar arrangements of the cubes standing on their corners and in contact over edges. We illustrate that minimal energy structures depend only on the size of the assembly and balance of surface repulsion and magnetic dipolar coupling. The presented results are scalable to different particle sizes and material parameters.

Graphical abstract: Assembly of nanocube super-structures directed by surface and magnetic interactions

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
04 May 2020
Accepted
31 Jul 2020
First published
07 Aug 2020

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 19390-19403

Assembly of nanocube super-structures directed by surface and magnetic interactions

I. Stanković, L. Lizardi and C. García, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 19390 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR03485A

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