Ultralow magnetostrictive flexible ferromagnetic nanowires

Abstract

The integration of magneto-electric and spintronic sensors to flexible electronics presents a huge potential for advancing flexible and wearable technologies. Magnetic nanowires are core components for building such devices. Therefore, realizing flexible magnetic nanowires with engineered magneto-elastic properties is key to flexible spintronic circuits, as well as creating unique pathways to explore complex flexible spintronic, magnonic, and magneto-plasmonic devices. Here, we demonstrate highly resilient flexible ferromagnetic nanowires on transparent flexible substrates for the first time. Through extensive magneto-optical Kerr experiments, exploring the Villari effect, we reveal an ultralow magnetostrictive constant in nanowires, a two-order reduced value compared to bulk values. In addition, the flexible magnetic nanowires exhibit remarkable resilience sustaining bending radii ∼5 mm, high endurance, and enhanced elastic limit compared to thin films of similar thickness and composition. The observed performance is corroborated by our micro-magnetic simulations and can be attributed to the reduced size and strong nanostructure-interfacial effects. Such stable magnetic nanowires with ultralow magnetostriction open up new opportunities for stable surface mountable and wearable spintronic sensors, advanced nanospintronic circuits, and for exploring novel strain-induced quantum effects in hybrid devices.