Flexible magnets through ALD-MLD

Lightweight thin-film magnets performing at room temperature are essential part of the next-generation flexible electronics; such advanced new materials have however remained to be truly challenged yet. Here we demonstarte the possibility to obtain such flexible magnets utilizing the merits of currently emerging atomic/molecular layer deposition technology. The flexible magnets here are deposited as inorganic-organic superlattice (SL) thin films; the thin organic layers intimately embedded within a ferromagnetic inorganic ε-Fe₂O₃ matrix. These hybrid ε-Fe₂O₃-organic thin films were deposited with sub-nm scale accuracy from FeCl₃ and terephthalic/azobenzoic acid precursors using the combined atomic/molecular layer deposition (ALD/MLD) technique.