The formation and magnetism of iron nanostructures on ordered polymer templates

We have followed the self-assembly of a magnetic antidot array during Fe sputter deposition onto a highly ordered, nanostructured polymer template by using a new kind of synchrotron radiation three-dimensional x-ray microscopy. The structural growth, chemical state (the formation of oxides) and the magnetic transition were determined in situ with 0.1 nm spatial resolution, revealing the excellent properties of polymer templates for a simple self-assembled large-scale fabrication of nanomagnetic systems tunable in size and spatial arrangement. Our method allows us to establish stability limits of novel magnetic nanostructures for high-density magnetic recording in a quantitative manner.