Enhanced thermal stability and magnetic properties in NaCl-type FePt-MnO binary nanocrystal superlattices

We report the growth of NaCl-type binary nanocrystal (NC) superlattice membranes by coassembly of FePt and MnO NCs at the liquid-air interface. The constituent FePt NCs were converted into the hard magnetic L1(0) phase by thermal annealing at 650 °C without degradation of the long-range NC ordering. In contrast, both FePt-only NC superlattices and FePt-MnO disordered NC mixtures showed substantial FePt sintering under the same annealing conditions. Our results demonstrate that the incorporation of FePt NCs into binary superlattices can solve the problems of FePt sintering during conversion to the L1(0) phase, opening a new route to the fabrication of ordered ferromagnetic NC arrays on a desired substrate for high-density data storage applications.