Magnetic Nanofiber Mats for Data Storage and Transfer.

Christoph Döpke,Dorota Kosmalska,Michaela Klöcker,Pawel Steblinski,Timo Grothe,Tomasz Blachowicz,Lilia Sabantina,Andrea Ehrmann

doi:10.3390/nano9010092

Abstract

Electrospun nanofiber mats may serve as new hardware for neuromorphic computing. To enable data storage and transfer in them, they should be magnetic, possibly electrically conductive and able to respond to further external impulses. Here we report on creating magnetic nanofiber mats, consisting of magnetically doped polymer nanofibers for data transfer and polymer beads containing larger amounts of magnetic nanoparticles for storage purposes. Using magnetite and iron nickel oxide nanoparticles, a broad range of doping ratios could be electrospun with a needleless technique, resulting in magnetic nanofiber mats with varying morphologies and different amounts of magnetically doped beads.

Highlights

Magnetic nanofibers are of large interest for basic research of their magnetic properties as well as for possible applications in spintronics or neuromorphic computing
In case (a), the z‐components of the beads are split in red and blue blue halves, showing the beads a vortex state withthe themagnetization magnetizationrotating rotating around around the halves, showing that that the beads are are in ainvortex state with x-axis
Nanofiber mats were electrospun from polyacrylonitrile blended with different magnetic nanoparticles in various weight ratios

Summary

Introduction

Magnetic nanofibers are of large interest for basic research of their magnetic properties as well as for possible applications in spintronics or neuromorphic computing. Typical methods to create magnetic nanofibers include vapor growth [1], anodizing processes [2], e-beam lithography [3], focused-ion-beam milling [4] or template-based methods [5]. Another possibility to unambiguously create nanofibers is electrospinning. Na et al created magnetic ferrite nanofibers in a polyvinyl alcohol fiber matrix and calcinated the polymer afterwards to obtain pure magnetic nanofibers [16]. Lin et al reported about carbonized PAN/cobalt ferrite nanofibers as a catalyst [17]

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Conclusion