This activity is mainly focused on the synthesis and advanced characterization of materials displaying diverse functionalities. Researchers at IMM Agrate Brianza have a long-standing experience in making use of radioactive ion implantation at the large-scale facility of ISOLDE at CERN to perform on line Mössbauer experiments. The method is unique in providing atomic-scale probes to investigate the chemical-structural-magnetic properties of materials down to the atomic-scale and in a regime of extreme dilution, as demonstrated by the recent important contribution given to the understanding of the magnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors/oxides [1]. The method is currently extended to the study of new multifunctional materials, in the framework of the active proposals within the International Mössbauer Collaboration at ISOLDE/CERN [2]. In particular, two recently approved experiments (foreseen experimental activity: 2021-2023) will target the study of the chemical, structural and magnetic properties of nanostructured materials for photocatalysis (i.e. TiO₂:H) and new rare earth-free permanent magnets (MnGa, MnBi,...). for details see active experiments IS653 and IS670 here. Researchers at IMM Agrate also pursue the use of atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to synthesize ferromagnetic layers (both metallic and oxides) mainly for spintronic applications.

PROJECTS
EXPERIMENTS AT CERN: IS653 and IS670