Magnetic vortex disks for magneto-mechanotransduction

A magnetic vortex, the ground state existing in micron- and submicron-sized ferromagnetic disks, is a three-dimensional spin structure that consists of a circulating in-plane magnetization and an out-of-plane vortex core. Magnetic vortex disks are promising mechanotransduction toolkits due to their capabilities in spatiotemporal manipulation of mechanical forces via the magnetic field. Here we report fabrication and magnetic imaging of patterned magnetic vortex disks. An array of Fe20Ni80 (Py) disks 3 um in diameter and 40 nm in thickness were fabricated using the photolithography, sputtering deposition, and lift off process. Element-specific photoemission electron microscopy imaging at the Ni L3 edge, performed at Beamline 4-ID-C of the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory, confirmed that the magnetic configuration of these Py disks are indeed magnetic vortices as expected. In the future, these fabricated magnetic vortex disks will be used as force or torque transducers in biomedical systems.