Electrical and Magnetic Properties of FeSi₂ Nanowires

We report the characterization of self-assembled epitaxially grown FeSi₂ nanowires (NWs) in terms of electrical and magnetic properties. NWs grown by reactive deposition epitaxy (RDE) on silicon (110) show dimensions of 10nm×5nm, and several micrometres in length. By using conductive-AFM (c-AFM), electron transport properties of one single NW is measured, resistivity of a single crystalline FeSi₂ NW is estimated to be 225μ\Ω ・cm. Using superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), we measure a magnetic moment of 0.3±0.1 Bohr magneton per iron atom for these FeSi₂ NWs.