Long magnetic nanowires of amorphous and crystalline materials have been fabricated by electron beam lithography to compare their magnetic properties. The length of the wires is varied in the 200–500 mm range, and their width and the interwire distance have been reduced down to 200 nm. Magnetooptical and transport measurements show that, although the overall behavior is dominated by the shape anisotropy of the elements, wires of similar dimensions made of different materials present important differences in their magnetization reversal processes. In particular, the influence of the microstructure on the hysteresis loop characteristics has been analyzed by the comparison of CoxSi1 x alloy wires withvery similar saturation magnetization, but witheith er amorphous or polycrystalline microstructure. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This work was supported by the Spanish CICYT and European Union under grants MAT99-0724 and 1FD97-0128.1909793.

Peer reviewed