Zero-temperature spin-glass freezing in self-organized arrays of Co nanoparticles

¹  Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón, CSIC-Universidad de Zaragoza - 50009 Zaragoza, Spain, EU
²  Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragón and Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad de Zaragoza - 50009 Zaragoza, Spain, EU
³  Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales associée à l'Université Paris-Sud 11 - 1 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91767 Palaiseau, France, EU

Corresponding author: fluis@unizar.es

Received: 14 January 2010
Accepted: 19 March 2010

Abstract

We study, by means of magnetic-susceptibility and magnetic-aging experiments, the nature of the glassy magnetic dynamics in arrays of Co nanoparticles, self-organized in N layers from N = 1 (two-dimensional limit) up to N = 20 (three-dimensional limit). We find no qualitative differences between the magnetic responses measured in these two limits, in spite of the fact that no spin-glass phase is expected above T = 0 in two dimensions. More specifically, all the phenomena (critical slowing-down, flattening of the field-cooled magnetization below the blocking temperature and the magnetic memory induced by aging) that are usually associated with this phase look qualitatively the same for two-dimensional and three-dimensional arrays. The activated scaling law that is typical of systems undergoing a phase transition at zero temperature accounts well for the critical slowing-down of the dc and ac susceptibilities of all samples. Our data show also that dynamical magnetic correlations achieved by aging a nanoparticle array below its superparamagnetic blocking temperature extend mainly to nearest neighbors. Our experiments suggest that the glassy magnetic dynamics of these nanoparticle arrays is associated with a zero-temperature spin-glass transition.