Structure assembly regularities in vapour-deposited gold-fullerene mixture films.

Self-assembly is an attractive phenomenon that, with proper handling, can enable the production of sophisticated hybrid nanostructures with sub-nm-scale precision. The importance of this phenomenon is particularly notable in the fabrication of metal-organic nanomaterials as promising substances for spintronic devices. The exploitation of self-assembly in nanofabrication requires a comprehension of atomic processes creating hybrid nanostructures. Here, we focus on the self-assembly processes in the vapour-deposited Au x C60 mixture films, revealing the exciting quantum plasmon effects. Through a systematic characterization of the Au x C60 films carried out using structure-sensitive techniques, we have established correlations between the film nanostructure and the Au concentration, x. The analysis of these correlations designates the Au intercalation into the C60 lattice and the Au clustering as the basic processes of the nanostructure self-assembly in the mixture films, the efficiency of which strongly depends on x. The evaluation of this dependence for the Au x C60 composite nanostructures formed in a certain composition interval allows us to control the size of the Au clusters and the intercluster spacing by adjusting the Au concentration only. This study represents the self-assembled Au x C60 mixtures as quantum materials with electronic functions tuneable by the Au concentration in the depositing mixture.

Evidence of interface exchange magnetism in self-assembled cobalt-fullerene nanocomposites exposed to air.

We report on the establishing of an exclusive magnetic effect in air-exposed CoxC60 nanocomposites (x > 2) created through self-assembling in the depositing mixture. In order to verify the influence of ambient air on the CoxC60 mixture film, we have studied in detail the film magnetization at rather low temperatures, which provides their ferromagnetic behavior. Tracing the possible exchange bias effect, we distinguished a clear vertical shift of the hysteresis loops recorded for the air-exposed CoxC60 films in the field cooling (FC) regime. The detected vertical shift of the FC loops is caused by an uncompensated magnetic moment M u induced by exchange coupling of the Co spins at the Co/CoO interface. This interface arises due to the oxidation of small Co clusters distributed in a C60-based matrix of self-assembled composite films, which occurs during air exposure. The core-shell structure of the Co/CoO magnetic clusters (about 2-3 nm in size) consisting of a ε-Co core and fcc-CoO shell was confirmed by means of transmission electron microscopy. Established interface magnetism testifies to a composite nanostructure in the CoxC60 mixture film with x > 2 and explains the influence of air exposure on the film structure. The discovered magnetic effect implies a new application potential for cobalt-fullerene composites in sensors and catalysis.