Elisabetta Agostinelli -
Aldo Capobianchi -
Sara Laureti -
Alberto Maria Testa -
Gaspare Varvaro -
Enrico Patrizi -
Paolo Rocchi -
Davide Peddis (UniGe) - Associato ISM -
Dino Fiorani - Associato ISM -
Maryam Abdolrahimi - Dottorando -
Mariam Hassan - Dottorando -
Emiliano Marchetti - Dottorando -
Alessandro Talone - Dottorando -
Sawssen Slimani - Dottorando -
Research Activities
The Nanostructured Magnetic Materials laboratory (nM2-Lab) was created in 2015 from the Nano-Magnetism laboratory, which was founded by D. Fiorani in the late 80s gaining a strong international reputation over the years on the investigation of fundamental aspects of magnetism in nanoparticles and thin film systems. Currently, nM2-Lab aims at designing and investigating functional nanoscale-engineered magnetic materials including single-phase, magnetic composites and hybrid/multifunctional systems in the form of nanoparticles, thin films, and nano-patterned systems, while developing novel concepts for applications in many areas, such as Energy, Biomedicine, Sensors, Information Technologies, Environment and Cultural Heritage. Members of the nM2-Lab are also involved in education and dissemination activities by training of PhD, master and high-school students and in the organization of scientific events targeting to the large public and research professionals in the area of magnetism and material science.
Functional magnetic thin films and heterostructures (Leader: G. Varvaro)
The research activity spans from the design to the preparation and characterization of thin films and heterostructures for fundamental studies and applications, including information storage, sensing and biomedicine.
During the last decade, the focus has been on high-anisotropy ferromagnetic alloys and multilayers with out-of-plane anisotropy and magnetic coupled composites (hard/soft, exchange-bias systems). More recently studied systems include critical-element-free high-anisotropy magnetic alloys and synthetic antiferromagnet-based heterostructures on both rigid and flexible substrates. Furthermore, a particular attention is devoted to study the correlation between the magnetic behavior and the morpho-structural properties by exploiting angular/vector magnetic measurements and by investigating the structural properties at the local scale by synchrotron X-ray techniques.
Hybrid magnetic nanoarchitectures (Leader: D. Peddis)
Hybrid magnetic nanoarchitectures (Leader: D. Peddis) Research activity is developed in the framework of Solid State Physical-Chemistry and Condensed Matter Physics investigating the relationship between physical properties, crystalline structures and morphological features of nanostructured magnetic materials. In particular, the activity is focused on design and synthesis by chemical methods of hybrid magnetic nano-architectures (HMNA) consisting of a magnetic nano-heterostructure (e.g. nanoparticles with controlled morphology, core-shell and multi-shell bi-magnetic structures, nanoparticles’ superstructures) suitably functionalized with specific molecules (e.g. amorphous silica also mesostructured, zirconia, organic molecules). HMNA are of great interest for various applications such as permanent magnets with reduced content of critical rare earth elements, advanced thermoelectrics, biomedicine (e.g. imaging, magnetic hyperthermia and biosensors) and catalysis. Consolidate expertise are present in the investigation of static and dynamic magnetic properties of HMNA by DC/AC magnetometry techniques, Mössbauer spectrometry as well as X-Ray Magnetic circular dichroism and neutron diffraction.
Magnetic alloys and multifunctional nanocomposites (Leader: A. Capobianchi)
The research activity aims at developing (design, synthesis and characterization) chemically ordered binary alloys nanoparticles with ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic behaviour and multifunctional nanocomposites combining magnetic metal particles and carbon-based materials (e.g. CNTs ad graphene) of interest for many applications including energy, biomedicine, catalysis, sensors and information storage, among others. A smart and versatile chemical synthesis strategy exploiting crystalline precursor salts has been developed to synthesize chemically order alloys under milder conditions with respect to conventional thermal processes. Innovative and patented methods are used to fill the CNTs and decorate the external surface of carbon-based materials.
Synthesis of L10 alloy nanoparticles. Potential and versatility of the Pre-ordered Precursor Reduction strategy
Journal of Alloys and Compounds, in press
Instrumentation
ns-PLD (@248 nm) SQUID MPMS XL-5 Magnetic Nano-Architecture Vectorial VSM
Collaborations
- International: Un. Augsburg (Germania); CEA (Francia); CONICET (Argentina); HZDR (Germania); IKBFU (Russia); NCHU (Taiwan); NCSR “Demokritos” (Grecia); Romanian Academy (Romania); UCLM (Spagna); Un. Uppsala (Svezia); Istituto Vinca (Serbia).
- National: FCA (Torino); ICCOM-CNR (Firenze); IMEM-CNR (Parma); IOM-CNR (Perugia); ISMN-CNR (Bologna); Un. Ferrara; Un. La Sapienza (Roma), Un. Padova; Un. Pisa; Un. Polit. Marche; Polit. Milano; Un. Roma Tre.