Potential perpendicular magnetic recording material: Supported and unsupported vertically-grown ferromagnetic iron nanowire arrays

We fabricated vertically-grown ferromagnetic iron nanowire arrays on glass substrates (unsupported) and inside aluminum-oxide nanopores (supported) by thermally decomposing iron pentacarbonyl precursor in the gas phase in the presence of a magnetic field. High coercivities and easy magnetization parallel to the nanowire’s direction were observed at room temperature due to shape anisotropy. These results show that iron nanowire arrays have potential for high-density perpendicular magnetic recording.