Evolution of magnetic anisotropy and thermal stability during nanocrystal-chain growth

We compare measurements and simulations of ferromagnetic resonance spectra of magnetite nanocrystal-chains at different growth-stages. By fitting the spectra, we extracted the cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy field and the uniaxial dipole field at each stage. During the growth of the nanoparticle-chain assembly, the magnetocrystalline anisotropy grows linearly with increasing particle diameter. Above a threshold average diameter of D ≈ 23 nm, a dipole field is generated, which then increases with particle size and the ensemble becomes thermally stable. These findings demonstrate the anisotropy evolution on going from nano to mesoscopic scales and the dominance of dipole fields over crystalline fields in one-dimensional assemblies.