New opportunities in microwave electronics with ferromagnetic nanowires

Abstract

A series of monolithic tunable microwave band-stop filters and phase shifters have been designed, fabricated, and characterized on arrays of ferromagnetic nanowires (FMNWs) constituted of Ni, Co, CoFeB, and NiFe alloy embedded in anodic alumina templates (AAO). The aim of the present investigation is to significantly boost the operating frequency of devices in very low applied magnetic field. The stop-band response can cover from 8 to 40 GHz with an applied magnetic field up to 5 kOe using these materials. In addition, we observed a substantial increase in frequency tunability (>110%) for Ni and NiFe alloy based filter. Frequency bandwidth/linewidth can be tuned with the proper choice of magnetic material, broad band for Co nanowires to narrow band for CoFeB nanowires. The amorphous nature of CoFeB reduces linewidth considerably and hence increases resonance absorption. It is also observed that the frequency linewidth (Δf) decreases with increasing applied magnetic field. The same filter can be used as a tunable phase shifter. For Ni nanowire based phase shifter, a maximum shift of 75°/cm at 4 kOe was observed.