MICROMAGNETIC STUDY OF IRON NANOWIRE ARRAYS

Permanent magnets are essential components of various types of electric motors, generators, and other important technology. The strongest permanent magnets are made of rare earth metals. Examples of these rare earth magnets are the neodymiumiron-boron magnet (NdFeB) or the samarium-cobalt magnet (SmCo). However, permanent magnets rich in rare earth metals are expensive and thermally unstable. It would be extremely beneficial if permanent magnets could somehow be developed by using cheap and thermally stable transition metals. Cobalt nanowire arrays have been developed in the past by chemical methods and it has been found that this type of systems can exhibit large coercivities of up to almost 1 MA/m, which can become comparable with NdFeB/SmCo magnets at high temperatures. In this article micromagnetic simulations are used to study various iron nanowire arrays. Thus, it can be determined why these assemblies give rise to incredible magnetic properties. The advantage of micromagnetic simulations is the ability to analyze a broad range of geometries and materials and to get an insight into the physics behind the observed magnetic properties.