Modelling of Packed Co Nanorods for Hard Magnetic Applications

Institute of Solid State Physics, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria

^a Corresponding author: peter.toson@tuwien.ac.at

Published online: 3 July 2014

Abstract

We present a numerical algorithm based on the bullet physics library to generate densely packed (39% - 41%) structures of high-aspect-ratio nanorods for finite element micromagnetic simulations. The coercivities µ₀H_c of the corresponding Cobalt nanorod structures vary between 0.50T and 0.67T, depending on the overall orientation of nanorods, which is in good agreement with experimental results. The simulations make it possible to estimate the coercivity loss due to incoherent reversal processes (27%) as well as the gain due to shape anisotropy (59%). Our calculations show permanent magnets consisting of packed Co nanorods with an energy density product (BH)_max of 83kJ/m³. We estimate that this value can be increased to 103kJ/m³ by increasing the packing density from 40% to 45%. Another way to optimize (BH)_max is the usage of novel materials. By varying the anisotropy constant K₁ and the saturation polarisation J_S we found lower limits for these parameters to reach a certain energy density product. To increase (BH)_max to 160 kJ/m³, K₁ and J_S have to be in the order of 450kJ/m³ and 2.25T, respectively. The thermal stability of this approach was verified by elastic band calculations. Cobalt nanorods with a diameter of 10nm and a height of 50nm are thermally stable at room temperature, but problematic at 900K. Doubling the nanorods' height to 100nm increases that limit considerably.