In this study, We fabricated FePt-based perpendicular patterned media using a selective combination of E-beam lithography and either Ar plasma etching (deposition-first process) or FePt lift-off (deposition-last process). We employed the deposition-last process to avoid chemical and structural disordering by impinging Ar ions (deposition-first process). For a patterned medium with 100 nm patterns made by this process, the out-of-plane coercivity was measured to be 5 fold larger than its in-plane value. The deposition-last process may be a promising way to achieve ultra-high density patterned media.

Semimetallic bismuth (Bi) has been extensively investigated over the last decade since it exhibits very intriguing transport properties due to their highly anisotropic Fermi surface, low carrier concentration, long carrier mean free path l, and small effective carrier mass $m^*$. In particular, the great interest in Bi nanowires lies in the development of nanowire fabrication methods and the opportunity for exploring novel low-dimensional phenomena as well as practical application such as thermoelectricity[1]. In this work, we introduce a self-assembled interconnection of nanostructures produced by an on-film formation of nanowires (OFF-ON) method in order to form a highly ohmic Bi nanobridge. A Bi thin film was first deposited on a thermally oxidized Si (100) substrate at a rate of $40\;{\AA}/s$ by radio frequency (RF) sputtering at 300 K. The sputter system was kept in an ultra high vacuum (UHV) of $10^{-6}$ Torr before deposition, and sputtering was performed under an Ar gas pressure of 2m Torr for 180s. For the lateral growth of Bi nanowires, we sputtered a thin Cr (or $SiO_2$) layer on top of the Bi film. The Bi thin films were subsequently put into a custom-made vacuum furnace for thermal annealing to grow Bi nanowires by the OFF-ON method. After thermal annealing, the Bi nanowires cannot be pushed out from the topside of the Bi films due to the Cr (or $SiO_2$) layer. Instead, Bi nanowires grow laterally as a mean s of releasing the compressive stress. We fabricated a self-assembled Bi nanobridge (d=192 nm) device in-situ using OFF-ON through annealing at $250^{\circ}C$ for 10hours. From I-V measurements taken on the Bi nanobridge device, contacts to the nanobridge were found highly ohmic. The quality of the Bi nanobridge was also proved by the high MR of 123% obtained from transverse MR measurements. These results manifest the possibility of self-assembled nanowire interconnection between various nanostructures for a variety of applications and provide a simple device fabrication method to investigate transport properties on nanowires without complex patterning and etching processes.

We observed period of SdH oscillation in an individual Bi nanowire with the transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields along the axis of the nanowire grown by OFF-ON. Our results provide good qualitative description of the cyclotron behavior of the single-crystalline Bi nanowire in the ballistic regime.

Co/Pd multilayer systems have been investigated with much attention for a long time due to the high and easily controllable perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Two [Pd(1)/Co(0.4 nm)]5 multilayer systems - one is as-deposit, and the other is annealed at $350^{\circ}C$ - are studied with an all-optical approach. A two-color optical pump probe setup using 30 fs laser pulse at 82 MHz repetition rate is used to measure the time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr signal. It turns out the heat treatment enhances the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, and leads to faster magnetization precession. The frequency reaches 30 GHz in the annealed sample, which is a factor of 2 larger compared to the as-deposit film.

We report the proper resistance-area products in the single crystalline bcc CoFe/MgO tunnel contact on nondegenerate n-Ge desirable for efficient spin injection and detection at room temperature. The electric properties of the crystalline CoFe(5 nm)/MgO(1.5,2.0,2.5 nm)/n-Ge(001) tunnel contacts have been investigated by I-V-T and C-V measurements. Interestingly, the tunnel contact with the 2-nm MgO exhibits the ohmic behavior with low resistance-area products, satisfying the theoretical conditions required for significant spin injection and detection. This result is ascribed to the presence of MgO layer between CoFe and n-Ge, enhancing the Schottky pinning parameter as well as shifting the charge neutrality level.

In summary, the FMR technique was applied to investigate the magnetic properties of Py thin films. Frequency dependence of the resonance field and line width was analyzed using Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation.

A model system allowing the experimental determination of the spin-motive force from the vortex gyration motion in a circular nanodisk is presented. It can be one way to get experimental detection of the spin-motive force and it will provide an important tool to study the relationship between the charge and spin transports in ferromagnetic system.

Two-layered ferromagnetic alloy films ($Ni_{80}Fe_{20}$, $Co_{90}Fe_{10}$) with a Conetic intermediate soft magnetic layer of different thickness were investigated to correlate the coercivity values and magnetization process with the strength of the hard saturation field. The interpretation of strong, medium and weak coupling is proposed.

Our results demonstrate the possibility of implementing a chip-cytometer for biological applications using high-sensitive spin-valve devices integrated with a microfluidic channel. Further studies will be extended to the real-time detection of animal cells coated with magnetic beads for the biological applications.