The Basis of Nanomagnetism

Abstract

Summary. What is the origin of the observed differences in magnetic behavior between a sample with nanometric dimensions and a macroscopic sample of the same material? These differences are shown to arise from broken translation symmetry in nanometric samples, from the higher proportion of atoms on the surface, or interface, from the fact that the sizes of nanoscopic objects are comparable to some fundamental or characteristic lengths of the con- stituent material, and other effects. The exchange length and the magnetic domain wall width are some of the characteristic lengths that are more relevant to the magnetic properties. The shape of the density of electronic states curve is also dependent on the dimensionality of the samples.