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 ADVANCED
MAGNETIC MATERIALS

Edited by Leszek Malkinski

 ADVANCED
MAGNETIC MATERIALS
Edited by Leszek Malkinski
Advanced Magnetic Materials
Edited by Leszek Malkinski

Published by InTech
Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

Copyright © 2012 InTech

All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for
commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which
ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work
has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in
any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the
work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify
the original source.

As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published
chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly
credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.

Notice
Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors
and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the
accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no
responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any
materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book.

Publishing Process Manager Romina Skomersic

Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic
Cover Designer InTech Design Team

First published May, 2012

Printed in Croatia

A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com

Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected]

Advanced Magnetic Materials, Edited by Leszek Malkinski

p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-51-0637-1
Contents

Preface IX

Chapter 1 Rapidly Solidified Magnetic

Nanowires and Submicron Wires 1
Tibor-Adrian Óvári, Nicoleta Lupu and Horia Chiriac

Chapter 2 M-Type Barium Hexagonal Ferrite Films 33

Mingzhong Wu

Chapter 3 Tailoring the Interface

Properties of Magnetite for Spintronics 61
Gareth S. Parkinson, Ulrike Diebold,
Jinke Tang and Leszek Malkinski

Chapter 4 Biomedical Applications of Multiferroic Nanoparticles 89

Armin Kargol, Leszek Malkinski and Gabriel Caruntu

Chapter 5 Micro-Fabrication of Planar Inductors for

High Frequency DC-DC Power Converters 119
Elias Haddad, Christian Martin, Bruno Allard,
Maher Soueidan and Charles Joubert

Chapter 6 Fe-Al Alloys’ Magnetism 133

F. Plazaola, E. Apiñaniz, D. Martin Rodriguez,
E. Legarra and J. S. Garitaonandia

Chapter 7 Magnetic Material Characterization

Using an Inverse Problem Approach 171
Ahmed Abouelyazied Abdallh and Luc Dupré

Chapter 8 The Everett Integral and

Its Analytical Approximation 203
Jenõ Takács
Preface

Recent progress in information technology, wireless communication, biotechnology

and microelectronics requires advanced technologies and new magnetic materials to
meet demands of modern devices. This collection of eight chapters provides an up‐to‐
date review of recent trends and developments in technology, characterization
methods, theory and applications of modern magnetic materials with original, never
published contributions from the renowned scientists in the field of magnetism. The
book is addressed to a diverse group of readers which include students, engineers and
researchers in the fields of physics, chemistry, bioengineering, electronics and
materials science, who wish to enrich their knowledge about advanced magnetics.
Depending on the discipline represented by the readers they are invited to read entire
book or select chapters of particular interest. In order to help with the choice of
appropriate chapters below I summarize their content:

Chapter 1. The first chapter reports on fabrication method of amorphous magnetic

nanowires with the glass coating using rapid solidification of the melt. The original
measurement methods and magnetic properties of the nanowires with the diameters
ranging from 90 nm to 13 μm are presented. In particular, the article targets the effect
of fabrication conditions and post‐fabrication treatment on mobility and velocity of
domain walls in the nanowires, which can be used in future racetrack memories,
magnetic domain wall logic devices, domain wall diodes and oscillators, and other
devices.

Chapter 2. Future microwave devices for wireless communications require extended

frequency range. This chapter treats about new developments in technology and
application of a new microwave material ‐ barium hexagonal ferrite films with
extremely high anisotropy, large saturation magnetization and low losses in the
microwave range. The author demonstrates original results regarding prototype notch
filters and phase shifters operating at millimeter range wavelengths which employ the
hexagonal ferrite films.

Chapter 3. Spin electronics (or spintronics) is an emerging field of science which takes
advantage of magnetic moments to build nonvolatile random access memories and
other digital devices. In order to compete and eventually replace semiconductor‐based
electronics, the spintronic devices must use materials with nearly 100% spin
X Preface

polarization. The magnetite is one of the best candidates for the spintronic
applications. However, its performance in existing devices is drastically reduced by
the atomic structure at the surface which differs from that of the bulk. This chapter
presents studies of surface reconstruction of the magnetite and describes methods for
increasing spin efficiency in spintronic devices by preserving the Fe3O4 structure of the
surface.

Chapter 4. Multiferroic composites consisting of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric

materials provide a unique way of converting magnetic field into electric field. This
process involves stresses at the interface between these materials and takes advantage
of the piezoelectricity of the ferroelectric and the magnetostriction of the ferromagnetic
phase. This chapter describes original methods of synthesis of multiferroic core‐shell
nanoparticles and indicates entirely new biomedical applications of such
nanoparticles. Using external alternating magnetic fields it is possible to produce local
electric fields near multiferroic nanoparticles which can control opening and closing of
voltage‐gated ion channels in mammalian cells. Ion channels are involved in
generation and propagation of action potentials in nerves and their malfunction can
lead to multiple diseases such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, cardiac arrhythmias,
neurological disorders or hypertension. The proposed mechanism has also potential
for a new method of cancer treatment.

Chapter 5. One of challenges in the design of portable electronic devices is the

optimization of on‐chip inductors for the power conversion. This optimization takes
into account multiple factors, such as size, a choice of fabrications method, frequency
range of operation, energy losses and cost of the device. This chapter provides detailed
discussion about theory, design, fabrication methods and measurements of essential
parameters characterizing electroplated micro‐inductors for DC‐DC conversion
operating with the switching frequency up to 100 MHz.

Chapter 6. The focus of this chapter is on the relation between magnetic properties and
disorder in the Fe‐Al system. Depending on the composition and the microstructure,
different magnetic and structural orders can exist in this system including a spin‐glass
order. Detailed experimental studies based on magnetometry, the Mössbauer effect
and X‐ray diffractometry, as well as theoretical models of this system show that the
atomic disorder, which can be controlled by a mechanical treatment or an annealing,
leads to significant increase in the lattice parameters and the magnetization compared
to those in the ordered structures. The contribution of disorder to the magnetism of
these alloys depends on the Fe content of the alloy and is the largest close to the equi‐
atomic FeAl alloy, but in Fe75Al25 alloy it is similar to the one given by the volume
change.

Chapter 7. Direct characterization of the magnetic material parameters based on

measurements of magnetic devices with complicated geometry is a complex problem.
This chapter proposes the state‐of‐the‐art methodology to extract materials
characteristics from the measurements of electromagnetic devices. This original
 Preface XI

algorithm is robust because all uncertainties present in electromagnetic devices are

taken into account in a stochastic framework. The algorithm is validated by applying it
for the identification of the magnetic properties of the material in an electromagnetic
device ‐ an electromagnetic core inductor.

Chapter 8. The last chapter tackles the problem of modeling of magnetic properties.
Macroscopic samples and devices consist of a large number of magnetic domains
which interact and evolve during magnetization process. Therefore, modeling of
magnetic hysteresis is one of the most difficult tasks in magnetism. This chapter
provides a detailed description of a new model for modeling of magnetization
processes in magnetic materials. It is based on a stochastic Preisach approach and uses
hyperbolic analytical approximation of the Everett integral. The theory offers
modeling of coercive force, remanent magnetization, hysteretic losses, Barkhausen
effect, eddy current losses, exchange bias and other essential properties of the
magnetic materials. It is applicable to a large variety of magnetic materials.

Research on magnetic materials is a dynamically expanding field of science and this

book demonstrates some highlights rather than complete overview of this vast
discipline. I hope that reading this book will spark interest of the readers and
encourage them to study magnetism of advanced materials. It will also bring better
understanding of challenging technologies which become a part of our life, whenever
we use computers, cellphones and other modern devices.

Dr. Leszek Malkinski

Associate Professor of Physics and Materials Science,
Department of Physics and the Advanced Materials Research Institute,
University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana,
USA
 1

Rapidly Solidified Magnetic

Nanowires and Submicron Wires
Tibor-Adrian Óvári, Nicoleta Lupu and Horia Chiriac
National Institute of Research and Development for Technical Physics Iaşi
Romania

1. Introduction
Magnetically soft amorphous glass-coated microwires are suitable for numerous sensor
applications. Their typical dimensions – metallic nucleus diameter of 1 to 50 m and glass
coating thickness of 1 to 30 m – make them promising candidates for high frequency
applications, especially given their sensitive giant magneto-impedance (GMI) response in
the MHz and GHz ranges (Torrejón et al, 2009). The magnetic properties of amorphous
microwires are determined by composition, which gives the sign and magnitude of their
magnetostriction, as well as by dimensions – metallic nucleus diameter, glass coating
thickness, and their ratio – which are extremely relevant for the level of internal stresses
induced during preparation. The magneto-mechanical coupling between internal stresses
and magnetostriction is mainly responsible for the distribution of anisotropy axes and
domain structure formation. Microwires generally display a core-shell domain structure in
their metallic nucleus, with orthogonal easy axes, e.g. axial in the core and circumferential or
radial in the shell, as schematically shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Typical core-shell domain structures in amorphous glass-coated microwires with

positive ( >0) and nearly zero magnetostriction (  0), respectively.
2 Advanced Magnetic Materials

An axially magnetized core, usually encountered in amorphous microwires with large and
positive magnetostriction, but also in nearly zero magnetostrictive ones if their nucleus
diameter is larger than 20 m (Chiriac et al., 2007a), leads to the appearance of the large
Barkhausen effect (LBE), that is a single step reversal of the magnetization in the core when
the sample is subjected to a small axial magnetic field. LBE takes place through the
propagation of a pre-existent 180 domain wall from one microwire end to the other, as
illustrated in Fig. 1.
Ferromagnetic nanowires are aimed for novel spintronic applications such as racetrack
memory, magnetic domain wall logic devices, domain wall diodes and oscillators, and
devices based on field or spin-current torque driven domain wall motion (Allwood et al.,
2005; Finocchio et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2007; Parkin et al., 2008). These applications require
nanowires with characteristics that can be accurately controlled and tailored, and with large
domain wall velocities, since the device speed depends on domain wall velocity. At present,
spintronic applications which require magnetic nanowires are based on planar nanowires
prepared by expensive lithographic methods (Moriya et al., 2010).
Recently, the large values of domain wall velocity reported in amorphous glass-coated
microwires have offered new prospects for the use of these much cheaper rapidly solidified
materials in spintronic applications, subject to a significant reduction in their diameter
(Chiriac et al., 2009a). The amorphous nanowires are composite materials consisting of a
metallic nucleus embedded in a glass coating prepared in a single stage process, the glass-
coated melt spinning, at sample lengths of the order of 104 m (Chiriac & Óvári, 1996). In
order to overcome the experimental difficulties related to the fabrication of such ultra-thin
wires and to drastically reduce the typical transverse dimensions of microwires (1 to 50 m
for the metallic nucleus diameter), the apparatus used for the preparation of the rapidly
solidified nanowires has been significantly modified. These efforts have led to the successful
preparation and characterization of rapidly solidified submicron wires with the metallic
nucleus diameter of 800 nm, reported less than 2 years ago (Chiriac et al., 2010). Figure 2 (a)
shows the SEM images of a submicron amorphous wire with the nucleus diameter of 800
nm, whilst Fig. 2 (b) illustrates the optical microscopy image of the submicron amorphous
wire in comparison with two typical amorphous microwires with the nucleus diameters of
4.7 and 1.8 m, respectively. These results have opened up the opportunity to develop
nanosized rapidly solidified amorphous magnetic materials for applications based on the
domain wall motion.
This first success has been shortly followed by the preparation and characterization of
amorphous glass-coated submicron wires with metallic nucleus diameters down to 350 nm
(Chiriac et al., 2011a), in which domain wall velocity measurements have also shown very
promising results (Óvári et al., 2011).
The well-known methods employed in the experimental studies have been extensively
modified in order to allow one to perform complex measurements on such thin wires,
especially due to the high sensitivity required to measure a single rapidly solidified ultra-
thin wire (Corodeanu et al., 2011a).
Following the same path, we have been able to produce rapidly solidified amorphous
nanowires through an improved technique. The diameters of the as-quenched nanowires
were ranging from 90 to 180 nm (Chiriac et al., 2011b). These new materials are useful for
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 3

Fig. 2a. SEM images of a submicron amorphous wire with the nucleus diameter of 800 nm.

Fig. 2b. Optical microscopy images of the submicron amorphous wire in comparison with two
typical amorphous microwires with the nucleus diameters of 4.7 and 1.8 m, respectively.

applications in both domain wall logic type devices and in novel, miniature sensors. The
accurate control of the domain wall motion could be performed without irreversible
modifications of the wire geometry, as recently pointed out (Vázquez et al., 2012).
Nevertheless, there are several issues to be addressed before these new materials can reach
their full practical potential: their integration in electronic circuits, the use of lithographic
methods to prepare the miniature coils required to inject and trap domain walls, the
clarification of the role of glass coating and whether or not it should be kept, removed or just
4 Advanced Magnetic Materials

partially removed – and in which stages of the device development, issues related to the
manipulation of wires with such small diameters, etc.
Figure 3 shows two SEM micrographs of a glass-coated Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous magnetic
nanowire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 90 nm and the glass coating of 5.5 m, taken
at different magnifications.

Fig. 3. SEM micrographs at two different magnifications of a rapidly solidified amorphous

nanowire with positive magnetostriction having the metallic nucleus diameter of 90 nm and
a glass coating thickness of 5.5 m.

A new method for measuring the domain wall velocity in a single, ultrathin ferromagnetic
amorphous wire with the diameter down to 100 nm has been developed in order to measure
such novel nanowires (Corodeanu et al., 2011b). The method has been developed in order to
increase the sensitivity in studying the domain wall propagation in bistable magnetic wires in
a wide range of field amplitudes, with much larger values of the applied field as compared to
those employed when studying the wall propagation in typical amorphous microwires. The
newly developed method is especially important now, when large effort is devoted to the
development of domain wall logic devices based on ultrathin magnetic wires and nanowires.
Besides the spintronic applications, the investigation of rapidly solidified amorphous
submicron wires and nanowires is aimed towards the understanding of the changes in the
magnetic domain structure, which makes the bistable behavior possible, and in the
switching field, at submicron level and at nanoscale.

2. Experimental techniques for the characterization of rapidly solidified

amorphous nanowires and submicron wires. Domain wall velocity
measurements
2.1 Magnetic characterization
Given the ultra-small diameters of rapidly solidified submicron wires and nanowires
(metallic nucleus diameters between several tens of nanometers and hundreds of
nanometers), the use of the classical characterization techniques employed for typical
microwires with diameters between 1 and 50 m (Butta et al., 2009; Kulik et al., 1993) in
order to measure their basic magnetic properties, e.g. to determine their magnetic hysteresis
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 5

loops, is not viable due to the low sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, in
order to investigate the magnetic properties of a single ultrathin magnetic wire, a reliable
measuring system has been developed (Corodeanu et al., 2011a). The new procedure has
been employed to measure a single ultrathin magnetic wire, i.e. a submicron wire or a
nanowire, using a digital integration technique. The new experimental set-up has been
developed in order to increase the sensitivity and to extract from the noisy signal a reliable
low frequency hysteresis loop for a single submicron wire or nanowire.
The main components of the measuring system used in the experiments are: the
magnetizing solenoid, the system of pick-up coils, a low-noise preamplifier, a function
generator, and a data acquisition board. A schematic of the system is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Schematic of the experimental system employed for the magnetic characterization of
rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires and submicron wires.

The magnetizing solenoid is powered by a Stanford Research DS 335 function generator

through a high power bipolar amplifier HSA 4014, being capable of generating magnetic
fields up to 30,000 A/m. Two pick-up coils connected in series-opposition are used in order
to avoid any induced voltage in the absence of the sample. Each pick-up coil is 1 cm long
and has 1,570 turns, wound with enameled 0.07 mm copper wire on a ceramic tube with an
outer diameter of 1.8 mm and an inner diameter of 1 mm. A 1 Ω resistor (R) is used to
provide a voltage proportional to the applied magnetic field. The voltage induced in the
pick-up coil is amplified up to 50,000 times using a Stanford Research SR560 low-noise
preamplifier in order to obtain a measurable value of the induced voltage and a high SNR.
The voltage drop on the resistor R and the amplified induced voltage from the pick-up coil
system are digitized using a National Instruments PCI-6115 four channels simultaneous
data acquisition board. The acquisition of the signals was done using a sampling frequency
between 800 kHz and 10 MHz (with 5,000 to 62,500 points/loop at 160 Hz). The acquired
signals have been processed using LabVIEW based software.
Two methods have been employed to measure the hysteresis loops. For the first one, it was
necessary to make an average over a large number of acquired signals, while for the second
one only two recordings of the signal were required (with and without the sample),
followed by digital processing to trace the hysteresis loop.
6 Advanced Magnetic Materials

For the first method, in order to extract the useful signal from the noisy one, two sets of data
have been acquired. First, the signal from the pick-up coil system with no sample in it has been
acquired; this ‘zero signal’ contains information about any possible miss-compensation of the
pick-up coils either due to the imperfect winding of the pick-up coils or of the magnetizing
solenoid. It is necessary to mention at this point that the field generated by the magnetizing
solenoid cannot be perfectly uniform. The non-uniformity of the field together with the
imperfections in the winding of the pick-up coils will affect the shape of the small induced
signal. This effect of the measuring system on the induced signal has to be removed in order to
obtain the clearest possible signal from the sample. Subsequently, the induced signal has been
digitally integrated, and the integrated signal was averaged over a large number of
measurements. In this way, an apparent hysteresis loop of the system with no sample was
recorded. An external trigger has been used to avoid any phase mismatch when averaging.
Averaging was done over the integrated signals rather than the induced signals. This was
due to the very small width of the peaks (of the order of 10 s) in the induced signals, as
well as due to the fact that they were not always in the exact same place (magnetization
reversal does not always occur at the same value of the field). Averaging such signals would
cancel the sample signal together with the noise.
The next step was to insert the sample, using a glass capillary, inside one of the pick-up
coils, taking care to avoid any displacements of the coils within the system. The induced
signals have been measured again. The corresponding signals were integrated and the
integrated signal was averaged as in the previous case in order to obtain the apparent loop
of the system with the sample.
The intrinsic hysteresis loop of the sample is obtained in this method by subtracting the
apparent loop without the sample from the apparent loop with the sample. A low pass filter
has been employed for further noise reduction, taking care not to alter the shape of the
sample peaks.
The magnetization process of these materials results in a square hysteresis loop since the
magnetization reversal takes place in a single step. Therefore, the induced signal displays a
peak, and should be null in rest (zero induced signal since magnetization does not change).
Based on this, a second, faster method is proposed to obtain a less noisy hysteresis loop.
In this second method, the signals induced with and without sample are acquired only once.
The signal without sample is subtracted from the signal with sample. The SNR is still too small
to obtain a good integration. Therefore, a window method has been employed (Butta et al.,
2009). Considering that everything outside the peak area of the signal must be zero, two
windows were used to select the peak area from the sample signal while the rest of the noisy
signal was numerically forced to become null. Using digital integration of the windowed
signal and an accurate selection of the peaks, the hysteresis loop of the sample is obtained.
First, a wider range which includes the peak area is selected. The hysteresis loop which
corresponds to this selection displays a noisy jump in magnetization, as if the sample
magnetization values would be larger and then smaller than the actual values. Therefore, the
selection range is progressively reduced in several steps, with integration being performed at
each step, in order to reduce the noise as much as possible in the region of the magnetization
jump. Special care was taken to avoid cutting the peaks. The selection accuracy does not affect
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 7

the measured value of coercivity and only slightly influences the magnetization (less than 5%
for the thinnest sample which has been used in the experiments).
Figure 5 shows the hysteresis loops of the same nanowire obtained through both methods.

Fig. 5. Hysteresis loop of a 133 nm Fe77.5Si7.5B15 nanowire covered by 6 µm of glass measured

using both methods (averaged and window).

Thus, a reliable method for the precise magnetic measurement of ultrathin wire shaped
samples, e.g. single nanowire, has been developed. The combination of the two methods
proposed for hysteresis loop measurements leads to an accurate characterization of
materials such as submicron wires and nanowires with diameters down to 100 nm: the first
method provides information about the profile of the hysteresis loop and magnetic behavior
of the sample (bistable or not), while the second one removes almost all the noise resulting
in a valid noise-free loop.

2.2 Domain wall velocity measurements

Magnetic bistability is one of the key characteristics of amorphous glass-coated submicron
wires and nanowires which make them important for applications. The magnetic bistable
behavior represents the one-step reversal of the magnetization along such samples at a
certain value of the applied magnetic field, value which is called switching field (Komova et
al., 2008). The actual reversal consists in the displacement of a 180 domain wall along the
entire length of the sample. The characteristics of the wall propagation, especially its
velocity, are essential for the properties of the domain wall logic devices which could be
developed. Therefore, it is extremely important to measure the domain wall velocity and its
field dependence with high accuracy, in order to determine the wall mobility and to
correctly predict characteristics such as operating speed of the future devices.
Therefore, the development of a new method for measuring the domain wall velocity in a
single magnetic wire with dimensions ranging from those of a typical microwire (1 – 50 m)
to those of a submicron wire (hundreds of nm) and further down to a nanowire (100 nm)
was required. Such a method was also necessary due to the increment of the field range in
8 Advanced Magnetic Materials

which the wall velocity needs to be measured. The new experimental set-up was developed
in order to increase the sensitivity and to study the domain wall mobility and damping
mechanisms in bistable magnetic wires in a wide range of the applied field amplitude.
The main problem addressed with the proposed method of measuring the domain wall
velocity is related to two important factors which change drastically as the wire diameter
decreases from the range of microns to that of submicrons and further down to nanometers:
the wall velocity values are very large and the propagation fields become extremely large.
Due to these two reasons, the existing measuring methods are inefficient in providing
accurate values for the domain wall velocity, mainly due to the nucleation of additional
domain walls which propagate among the pick-up coils, rendering the whole measurement
incorrect.
The measurement of the domain wall velocity is based on the classical method developed by
Sixtus and Tonks (Sixtus & Tonks, 1932). The original method has been improved by various
authors, e.g. (Hudak et al., 2009), in order to study the wall propagation in different types of
materials under various circumstances. A schematic diagram of the new experimental set-
up proposed in this work is shown in figure 6. The experimental set-up consists of a long
solenoid (37 cm long, 2 cm in diameter, 2335 turns with a field to current constant of 6214
Am-1/A) powered by a Stanford Research Systems DS 335 function generator through a
high power bipolar amplifier HSA 4014, and two compensated systems of four pick-up coils
placed within the solenoid. Each pick-up coil system consists of four identical coils Cx and
Cx (x = 1, 2, 3, 4) connected in series-opposition in order to obtain a compensated system
able to provide only the sample signal and almost zero signal in the absence of the sample.
The compensation is especially important for measurements performed on submicron wires
and nanowires due to the small sample induced signal relative to the field induced one in
the case of non-compensated systems.

Fig. 6. Schematic of the system of four pairs of compensated pick-up coils.

Each pick-up coil is composed of three windings: a 4 mm long one with 1800 turns (Cx.1)
and two 2 mm long ones with 800 turns (Cx.2 and Cx.3) placed close to the first one on the
right side, all of them wound with enameled 0.07 mm copper wire on a ceramic tube with
the outer diameter of 1.8 mm and the inner one of 1 mm. Cx.1, Cx.2 and Cx.3 are connected
in series in the given order, with Cx.2 being wound in the opposite direction as compared to
Cx.1 and Cx.3 in order to create a clear separation between the peaks induced in Cx.1 and
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 9

Cx.3. In order to reduce the self-oscillation of the system, an appropriate kilo-ohm resistor
has been connected in parallel with each winding (4 kΩ for Cx.1 and 2 kΩ for Cx.2 and Cx.3,
respectively). The pick-up coils are placed at certain distances among them (1 to 4 cm –
depending on the wire characteristics).
There have been four pick-up coils used to measure the domain wall velocity in order to
detect if any additional domain walls are nucleated in the measuring space and to obtain
this way an accurate value of the wall velocity and not just an apparent one. The
compensated system of pick-up coils can be employed to measure the wall velocity for
bistable wires with diameters from tens of micrometers down to 100 nanometers (the
smallest wire diameter tested) and for large values of the magnetizing field. For small wire
diameters (below a few m) the signals from the pick-up coils were amplified up to 50,000
times using four Stanford Research Systems SR560 low noise preamplifiers in order to
obtain a measurable value of the induced voltage and a good signal to noise ratio.
The amplified signals were digitized using a four-channel LeCroy WaveRunner 64Xi
oscilloscope, each of the four pick-up coils being connected to an input channel of the
oscilloscope (Cx to input Ix , where x = 1, 2, 3, 4). An external trigger has been used in order
to synchronize the acquired sample signal with the driving field. The current passing
through the magnetizing solenoid (sinusoidal with a frequency of 160 Hz) was measured
using a Keithley 2000 multimeter.
The acquired signals were processed using LabVIEW based software.
The inductive method is the most employed and straightforward technique used to measure
the domain wall velocity in bistable microwires (Chiriac et al., 2009b; Garcia-Miquel et al.,
2000; Ipatov et al., 2009). Various measuring configurations with two, three or four
measuring points on the wire length were previously reported, each of them being a step
forward for an enhanced and more precise measurement of the domain wall velocity in this
type of wires.
The system with only two pick-up coils is not the most adequate for wall velocity
measurements, since in the case of the wire, additional domain walls can nucleate at both
ends of the wire and even at different points on the wire length when the driving field is
large enough. Therefore, the signal picked up from one of the two coils is not precisely
determined to be the result of the same domain wall as the signal picked up by the other
coil. An apparent higher velocity than the real one can be recorded in this case.
Other measuring systems consist of four pick-up coils distributed on the wire length at a
certain distance among them (Chiriac et al., 2008). This configuration provides information
about the direction of the propagating wall. It also allows one to measure three values of the
wall velocity and, if all of them are equal, then it is clear that there is a single wall
propagating within the wire and the recorded wall velocity is the real one and not an
apparent one. The main disadvantage of such a system is the impossibility to exactly
identify the direction of the domain wall displacement through each coil.
This shortcoming has been solved by a recently proposed configuration which includes four
pairs of pick-up coils which allow one to identify the direction of the wall propagation when
it passes through each pair (Chiriac et al., 2009b). The main disadvantages of this set-up
appear when the velocity is measured at large values of the applied field and/or when the
measured wire has such a small diameter that the sample induced signal is much smaller
10 Advanced Magnetic Materials

than the signal induced by the external field. In these cases, it is practically impossible to
distinguish the sample-generated peaks in the recorded signal.
To overcome this matter, the following solution has been developed: two identical strips
with four pairs of pick-up coils have been made according to the description given in
(Chiriac et al., 2009b), with 2000 turns for the large coil and 800 turns for the smaller one, in
order to increase the sensitivity. Each pair of coils from the first strip has been connected in
series-opposition with a pair of coils from the second strip in order to cancel the signal
induced by the applied field. The recorded signal had two peaks. However, this solution
cannot be employed in the case of the ultrathin wires such as submicron wires and
nanowires, because in this case the increment of the number of turns for each coil (made to
increase sensitivity) leads to the impossibility to separate the two peaks. To overcome this
new problem and to detect the direction of the domain wall displacement through the pick-
up coil system, the measuring system has been improved with pick-up coils having three
windings.
Figure 7 shows the compensated signals from each winding (VCx.1, VCx.2, VCx.3 – Figs. 7 a, b, c),
the composed signal for all three windings VCx.1+2+3=(VCx.1)+(VCx.2)+(VCx.3), (Fig. 7 d), and the
composed signal for the two windings wound in the same direction VCx.1+3=(VCx.1)+ (VCx.3),
(Fig. 7 e), as they result from the separately acquired signals (x = 1, 2, 3, 4 – the number of
the composite pick-up coil) for an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 glass-coated microwire with the metallic
nucleus diameter of 30 m and the glass coating thickness of 25 m. Signals have been
acquired for two amplitudes of the applied field: 2 kA/m and 20 kA/m. The largest signal
is given by Cx.1 and therefore its maximum is used as the marker for velocity calculations.
The signal given by Cx.3 is smaller and is used to determine the direction of the wall
movement in the pick-up coil system. For small values of the applied field and small

Fig. 7. Signals induced in each winding of a pick-up coil and in the pick-up coils composed
of two and three windings for an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 glass-coated microwire with the metallic
nucleus diameter of 30 m and the glass coating of 25 m for two values of the applied field
amplitude (2 kA/m and 20 kA/m): a, a’) signal in Cx.1; b, b’) signal in Cx.2; c, c’) signal in
Cx.3; d, d’) signal in the pick-up coil made of three windings; e, e’) signal in the pick-up coil
with two windings.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 11

wall velocity values the system with pairs of two windings is enough to accurately detect
the direction of the wall movement (Fig. 7 e).
The difficulties appear when the applied field and wall velocity increase and a net
distinction between the positive peaks is no longer possible (Fig. 7 e). By adding a new
winding (Cx.2) in series-opposition with Cx.1 and Cx.3 (physically placed between these
two) a net difference between the positive peaks appears, and the direction of wall
displacement can be accurately determined even for larger applied fields and a
corresponding wider range of wall velocity values.
The functionality of the system with pick-up coils composed of three windings has been
tested on Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous glass-coated wires with metallic nucleus diameters from
30 m down to 100 nm. The amplitude of the applied field was ranging between a few A/m
and 2.5 kA/m. For small values of the metallic core diameter (below 1-2 m) four low noise
preamplifiers (Stanford Research Systems SR560) have been used in order to obtain a
measurable voltage from each compound pick-up coil.
Figure 8 shows the peaks generated by the displacement of the domain wall in the sequence
C4 → C3 → C2 → C1, for an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 glass-coated submicron amorphous wire with the
metallic nucleus diameter of 500 nm and the glass coating thickness of 6.5 m. The direction
of the domain wall movement through each coil is determined from the order of the high
and low amplitude peaks. The direction is from left to right (C1  C2  C3  C4) when the
high amplitude peak appears ahead of the low amplitude one, and from right to left (C4 
C3  C2  C1) when the high amplitude peak appears after the low amplitude one (see
figures 7 and 8). Taking into account the succession of the amplitude peaks, one can observe
that a single domain wall is propagating through the wire from right to left and the
recorded wall velocity is therefore valid in this case, being 935 m/s at 3650 A/m for the
tested submicron wire sample.
The distance between two neighboring pick-up coils was 40 mm. In some cases
supplementary domain walls can be nucleated in the measuring space (Garcia-Miquel et al.,
2000; Hudak et al., 2009), usually when a large field is applied and/or some defects are
present in the wire structure. Therefore, for very high amplitudes of the applied field, the
distance between two adjacent pick-up coils is reduced in order to measure the wall
velocity, sometimes even down to 10 mm. This flexibility allows one to have a single
domain wall moving through the measuring space for very high fields and for any sample
diameter from 50 m down to 300 nm.
However, for wires with the metallic nucleus diameter of 300 nm (see figure 9) and below, it
is extremely difficult to discern the secondary peak (the smaller one) from the noise, since
the amplitude of this peak is at the same level as the noise. Even so, measurements can be
performed and the velocity of the domain wall is valid if the peaks are in the right order and
all three measured values are equal. For the thinnest wire tested – the amorphous nanowire
with the metallic nucleus diameter of 100 nm – the measurement of the wall velocity is even
more difficult, as it displays a very large switching field (of about 11 kA/m), domain wall
velocities above 1 km/s, and the distance which ensures that only propagation of a single
domain wall takes place is very small, i.e. less than 3 cm.
12 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 8. Signal induced by the propagating wall in the sequence C4 → C3 → C2 → C1 in an

Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 500 nm.
Applied field: 3,650 A/m.

Fig. 9. Signal induced by the propagating wall in the sequence C4 → C3 → C2 → C1 in an

Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 300 nm and
6.5 m glass thickness at 7,200 A/m.

Under these circumstances, the use of pick-up coils composed of three windings is no longer
efficient. As a result, for wires with nucleus diameters below 300 nm, which display shorter
propagation distances for the single wall, another specific system has been developed. The
new specific system has four compensated 6 mm long pick-up coils with 1500 turns placed
at 0.5 mm next to each other one, and wound with enameled 0.07 mm copper wire on a
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 13

ceramic tube with an outer diameter of 1.8 mm and the inner diameter of 1 mm. The
distance between two adjacent coil centers (6.5 mm) and the time interval between the two
corresponding peaks has been used to calculate the domain wall velocity. The resulting
peaks and schematic view of the pick-up coil system are presented in figure 10.

Fig. 10. Specific system of pick-up coils and signal induced by the wall in the sequence C1 →
C2 → C3 → C4 for an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 nanowire with 100 nm nucleus diameter and 6 m glass
coating. Applied field: 1.5 kA/m.

Precision of the measured value of the wall velocity in this case is also ensured by the right
order of the recorded peaks (C1 → C2 → C3 → C4) and by the close values of all three
recorded velocities (V1 = 1182 m/s, V2 = 1226 m/s, and V3 = 1140 m/s => V ≈ 1182 m/s). In
the case of ultrathin wires some variations of the recorded velocity values always appear
mainly due to the very low signal to noise ratio. The position of the maximum point in the
peak, used for velocity calculation, is strongly affected by the noise.
A LabView application has been developed in order to reduce the measuring time and
obtain a large number of points on the domain wall velocity versus field curves. A window,
in which positive peaks are detected, is created and a zoom on this window is made to have
all four peaks in view, in order to have always a visual control of the shape and order of the
peaks. The software detects the position of the highest point from each trace and calculates
three velocity values corresponding to the domain wall passing from C1 to C2, from C2 to
C3, and from C3 to C4, respectively. The software records the velocities and relative peak
positions and returns error messages if the succession of the peaks is not correct (C1 → C2 →
C3 → C4 or C4 → C3 → C2 → C1) and if the recorded velocities differ by more than a certain
predefined percent.
Figure 11 illustrates a comparative plot of the domain wall velocity vs. applied field for
Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous microwires, submicron wires and nanowires, i.e. wires with
different diameters of the metallic nucleus from the thickest (microwires with a 30 m
metallic nucleus) down to the thinnest (100 nm nanowires). The observed non-monotonic
dependence of domain wall velocity on wire diameter is in agreement with previously
14 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 11. Domain wall velocity in Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous glass-coated wires having various
diameters of the metallic nucleus (microwires, submicron wires, and nanowires).

reported result for submicron amorphous wires (Óvári et al, 2011). Such comprehensive
result would not have been possible without the development of the wall velocity
measuring set-ups presented above.
The development of this new method was mainly requested by the inaccuracy of the current
wall velocity measuring methods when the investigated samples are extremely thin, e.g.
nanowires, which require very large fields to propagate a domain wall, fields which can
nucleate additional domain walls and thus result in incorrect wall velocity values. Another
reason which required the development of the novel method was the increment in
sensitivity in order to measure domain wall velocity in wires with diameters down to 100
nm, in which the signal to noise ratio is very small. The proposed system is able to measure
domain wall velocities between 50 and 2400 m/s for samples in which the magnetic flux is
as low as 1.27  10-14 Wb. The availability of this new method is timely and of great
importance at present, when much work is undertaken in order to develop novel domain
wall logic devices which employ magnetic nanowires.

3. Magnetic behavior of rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires and

submicron wires
3.1 800 nm submicron wires
The bulk and surface magnetic behavior of submicron amorphous wires have been
investigated in order to compare them to the well known magnetic behavior of amorphous
microwires and to monitor the changes induced as the threshold toward submicron
dimensions is crossed.
The bulk magnetic behavior of the submicron wires has been studied by means of inductive
hysteresis loops, obtained using a fluxmetric method. Due to the small value of the induced
voltage in case of submicron wires, the signal was amplified using a Stanford Research
Systems SR560 low-noise voltage preamplifier, and subsequently fed into the integrating
fluxmeter.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 15

The surface magnetic behavior has been investigated by magneto-optical Kerr effect
(MOKE) in longitudinal configuration, using a NanoMOKE II magnetometer, produced by
Durham Magneto Optics Ltd. In this case, the rotation of the plane of polarization was
proportional to the magnetization component parallel to the plane of incidence. A polarized
light of He-Ne laser (λ = 635 nm) was reflected from the wire to the detector. The diameter
of the light beam was 2 m and the penetration depth of the laser light is 9 nm. The plane of
incidence was parallel to the wire axis. The following surface MOKE hysteresis loops have
been measured: axial magnetization (MZ) vs. axial field (HZ), MZ vs. perpendicular field
(H), and MZ vs. helical field (HZ).
Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements have been performed in order to study the
magnetic anisotropy from the surface region of submicron wires and to correlate the results
with the MOKE results. The FMR spectra were determined with an X-band spectrometer
using the modulation technique. The DC magnetic field was modulated with an alternating
field having a frequency of 1 kHz and the amplitude of 10 Oe. The working frequencies
were 8.5, 9.5, and 10.5 GHz, respectively.
Figure 12 shows the axial inductive hysteresis loop of a submicron wire measured at 50 Hz.
One observes that the submicron amorphous wire displays an unusual magnetic behavior,
unlike microwires with the same composition and metallic nucleus diameters below 20 m,
which typically display an almost anhysteretic axial loop (Zhukov et al., 2003).

Fig. 12. Axial inductive hysteresis loop of a (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous

glass-coated wire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 800 nm and the glass coating
thickness of 6 m.

On the contrary, the submicron wire is bistable even at such small diameter of the metallic
nucleus, which shows shape anisotropy becomes more important than magnetoelastic
anisotropy, which is prevailing in microwires with larger metallic nucleus diameters
(several microns up to 20 m). The value of the axial bulk switching field is 149 A/m, which
is quite small for such low dimension.
Figure 13 illustrates the MZ vs. HZ MOKE surface hysteresis loop of the submicron
amorphous wire. One observes that axial bistability is maintained even in the 9 nm deep
16 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 13. Axial magnetization vs. axial field MOKE hysteresis loop for the
(Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous glass-coated wire.

surface region, and the surface axial switching field of 118 A/m is in the same range as the
bulk value. This behavior is quite surprising, given the expected large values of the
circumferential compressive stresses induced in the surface region during the preparation of
the submicron wire. Nevertheless, it supports the above statement about the increased
importance of shape anisotropy, and it shows that the submicron wire displays an axial
component of magnetization in the surface region, as opposed to regular microwires with
similar composition in which the outer shell is mostly circumferential.

Figure 14 shows the MZ vs. H MOKE surface loop of the submicron wire. The jump in
magnetization is still observed, however the perpendicular switching field of 1600 A/m is
one order of magnitude larger than the bulk axial switching field. This was expected, as H
does not act on the axial component of the magnetization MZ, but only locally on the
circumferential component M, so a quite large field is required to switch the resultant
surface magnetization M by acting only locally on one of its components, i.e. M. The result
of magnetization switching is monitored through the other component – MZ.
Figure 15 illustrates the MZ vs. HZ MOKE surface loop for the same submicron amorphous
wire. The magnetization jump is observed at a smaller value of the helical switching field, of
89 A/m. Results from figures 13 through 15 support the existence of helical magnetic
anisotropy in the surface region of the submicron wire, rather than either solely axial or
circumferential anisotropy. The small value of the helical switching field confirms the
competition between magnetoelastic anisotropy and shape anisotropy and indicates a
smaller overall anisotropy toward the surface, which is also in agreement with the decrease
of the surface axial switching field (118 A/m) as compared to the value of the bulk axial
switching field (149 A/m).
FMR has been employed to further investigate the surface anisotropy of the submicron
amorphous wire. The values of the FMR line width at various frequencies for the submicron
amorphous wire are listed in Table 1.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 17

Fig. 14. Axial magnetization vs. perpendicular field MOKE hysteresis loop for the
(Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous glass-coated wire.

Fig. 15. Axial magnetization vs. helical field MOKE hysteresis loop for the
(Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous glass-coated wire.

Line width
Frequency Line width (kA/m)
(kA/m)
(GHz) 6.5 m microwire
Submicron wire
8.5 5.65 11.94
9.5 6.29 13.53
10.5 6.37 14.57
Table 1. FMR line width values at various frequencies for the (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15
submicron amorphous glass-coated wire and for a microwire with the same composition
having a 6.5 m nucleus diameter and a 9.5 m glass coating thickness.
18 Advanced Magnetic Materials

The FMR line width at 8.5 GHz is less than half the value for a microwire with a 6.5 m
nucleus diameter, given for comparison. This shows that surface anisotropy is better
emphasized in submicron wires as compared to microwires with typical dimensions, in
agreement with larger stresses induced during preparation of these thinner samples. An
increase of the resonance frequency to 9.5 and further to 10.5 GHz results in the increase of
the line width, which shows a higher degree of anisotropy spread toward the surface and
supports the above mentioned smaller overall anisotropy in the surface region.
Thus, the well known magnetic behavior of a typical nearly zero magnetostrictive microwire
changes when the metallic nucleus diameter enters the submicron range. Shape anisotropy
becomes dominant. Nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wires are fully bistable,
bistability being maintained even in a very thin 9 nm surface layer.

3.2 Submicron wires with diameters between 350 and 800 nm

A more significant effect of the reduction in the metallic nucleus diameter on the magnetic
behavior of rapidly solidified (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 nearly zero magnetostrictive and
Fe77.5Si7.5B15 positive magnetostrictive submicron wires has been investigated in a
comparative manner. The investigated submicron wire samples display metallic nucleus
diameters ranging from 350 to 800 nm. Their overall axial magnetization process has been
studied by measuring the bulk inductive hysteresis loops using a fluxmetric method. A
special attention has been also paid to the surface magnetic behavior of these thinner
samples, which has been studied by means of MOKE and FMR.
Figure 16 shows the bulk axial hysteresis loops of a (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 sample and an
Fe77.5Si7.5B15 sample with close values of the metallic nucleus diameter. The nearly zero
magnetostrictive wire has a metallic nucleus diameter of 510 nm and the glass coating of 6.5
m, whilst the positive magnetostrictive sample has the metallic nucleus diameter of 530 nm
and a glass coating of 9.7 m.

Fig. 16. Axial inductive hysteresis loops for a (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous
wire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 510 nm and the glass coating of 6.5 m and for an
Fe77.5Si7.5B15 sample with the metallic nucleus diameter of 530 nm and the glass coating of
9.7 m.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 19

The most important observation is that both types of submicron wires are indeed bistable, as
proven by their rectangular hysteresis loops, which makes them suitable for spintronic
applications. As concerns the particular aspects of these rectangular loops, besides the
known differences in their saturation magnetization, one also observes the large difference
between the coercivity values. The Co-based nearly zero magnetostrictive sample displays a
coercivity of 350 A/m, whilst the Fe-based positive magnetostrictive submicron wire has a
much larger coercivity of 2450 A/m. The correlation between dimensions, internal stresses
and coercivity has been extensively studied in the case of the larger amorphous glass-coated
microwires (Chiriac & Óvári, 1996). Such considerations also apply to the submicron wires,
which are similarly composite wires prepared using the same technique. Therefore,
coercivity is expected to decreases if the metallic nucleus diameter increases and/or the
glass coating thickness decreases. Indeed, for a positive magnetostrictive submicron wire
with the nucleus diameter of 670 nm and the glass coating of 6.5 m, coercivity reaches
down to 2000 A/m. This value shows that the coercivity of positive magnetostrictive
submicron wires is strongly influenced by the magnetoelastic coupling between internal
stresses and magnetostriction. However, the differences between the coercivity values in
Fig. 16 cannot be entirely attributed to the different strength of the magnetoelastic coupling
in positive and nearly zero magnetostrictive samples. A contribution is also given by the
different nature of the uniaxial anisotropy: magnetoelastic in case of the positive
magnetostrictive sample and shape anisotropy for the nearly zero magnetostrictive wire.
Coercivity increases to 4235 A/m for the thinnest positive magnetostrictive submicron wire
(nucleus of 350 nm and coating of 6.5 m). This is an expected consequence of the reduction
in the metallic nucleus diameter, but it is difficult to estimate the role of shape anisotropy in
this case.
Figure 17 illustrates the MOKE surface axial hysteresis loop of the 350 nm Fe77.5Si7.5B15
submicron wire. The coercivity of the surface loop has the same value as the coercivity of the
bulk loop. In case of the 510 nm nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wire, the MOKE
surface loop also shows the same coercivity value as the bulk one. These results show that
the analyzed samples are bistable in their entire volume.
However, there is no information on whether or not the anisotropy is perfectly uniaxial in
the near-surface region. FMR has been employed in order to study this particular aspect of
the anisotropy distribution.
Figure 18 shows the FMR spectra of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wire with a
metallic nucleus diameter of 350 nm. One observes that, irrespective of frequency, the
derivative resonance spectra display a single resonance field. These results indicate that in
such ultrathin submicron wires one can expect a uniaxial anisotropy which may show the
presence of a single domain structure instead of the well known core-shell magnetic
structure found in microwires (Chiriac & Óvári, 1996).
For comparison, figure 19 shows the FMR spectra of a typical Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous
microwire with the metallic nucleus diameter of 22 m and the glass coating thickness of 20
m. One observes that the resonance peaks are split in this case, showing a complex
anisotropy, which may be related to the typical outer shell and to the interdomain wall
between the outer shell and the inner core encountered in microwires of this size (Chiriac et
al., 2007b).
20 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 17. MOKE surface axial hysteresis loop of an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron wire with the
metallic nucleus diameter of 350 nm and the glass coating thickness of 6.5 m.

Fig. 18. FMR spectra of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wire with a metallic nucleus
diameter of 350 nm and the glass coating thickness of 6.5 m.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 21

Fig. 19. FMR spectra of an Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous microwire with the metallic nucleus
diameter of 22 m and the glass coating thickness of 20 m.

The most important result is that split resonance peaks have been found in this study even
for Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron wires with metallic nucleus diameters down to 500 nm. Figure 20
shows the FMR spectra of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron wire with the metallic nucleus
diameter of 530 nm and the glass coating thickness of 9.7 m.

Fig. 20. FMR spectra of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron wire with the metallic nucleus diameter
of 530 nm and the glass coating thickness of 9.7 m.

This shows that, even though the wire is fully bistable in its entire metallic nucleus, in the
near-surface region there is a complex anisotropy which is different from the expected pure
axial one. This is presumed to be a remnant of the radial anisotropy encountered in
22 Advanced Magnetic Materials

amorphous microwires with the same composition (Chiriac & Óvári, 1996). It still produces
effects which are detected by means of FMR due to the very large internal stresses produced
by the existence of a large glass coating compared to the diameter of the metallic core.
However, in the range from 500 nm to 350 nm an essential change occurs: shape anisotropy
becomes much more important than the magnetoelastic one. Therefore, the 350 nm
submicron wire is not only fully bistable, but it also displays a uniaxial anisotropy
associated with the expected single domain magnetic structure.
In the case of nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wires, the FMR spectra display only
one maximum for nucleus diameters of either 800 nm or 500 nm. FMR does not emphasize
the helical anisotropy observed by means of MOKE (Chiriac et al., 2010). This is an
indication that the region with helical anisotropy is extremely thin, given that the
penetration depth of the laser light is only 9 nm, and one can state that it is more a
magnetization ripple located at the very surface of the metallic nucleus, rather than a well
defined region with helical anisotropy. Such statement is in agreement with the axial
magnetic bistability determined by shape anisotropy in the (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 samples.
Thus, the crucial role played by shape anisotropy in the magnetic behavior of these ultrathin
magnetic wires has been emphasized once more. Shape anisotropy is the main factor that
determines the bistability of nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wires, irrespective of
the diameter of their metallic nucleus. This is due to their much smaller magnetoelastic
term, which originates in their small negative magnetostriction. As a result, they display a
single domain magnetic structure with an ultrathin magnetization ripple at the surface. On
the other hand, in positive magnetostrictive samples, magnetoelastic anisotropy still plays
an important role in wires with nucleus diameters from 500 nm and up, as shown by the
FMR spectra. In thinner samples, shape anisotropy becomes dominant and therefore they
display a single domain magnetic structure.

3.3 Rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires

Figure 21 shows the bulk hysteresis loops for two rapidly solidified glass-coated amorphous
nanowire samples. One observes the significant difference between the two switching fields
– 420 A/m as compared to 7400 A/m.
Figure 22 illustrates the MOKE surface hysteresis loop for the same samples. Both loops
show that the nanowires are bistable in their entire volume. This is an indication that rapidly
quenched amorphous magnetic nanowires display a single-domain structure, as opposed to
the classical core-shell structure (Takajo et al., 1993; Vázquez, 2001) of the thicker
amorphous microwires (metallic nucleus diameters over 1 m) and of the submicron
amorphous wires with diameters between 500 and 900 nm.
Therefore, at nanoscale, irrespective of composition, sample dimensions no longer allow the
formation of a complex core-shell magnetic domain structure as a result of magnetoelastic
energy minimization (Chiriac et al., 1995; Velázquez et al., 1996). Hence, despite the larger
values of the internal stresses in these ultra-thin rapidly solidified materials, which coupled
with the large positive magnetostriction of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15 alloy lead to a large
magnetoelastic term, the shape anisotropy is preponderant at nanoscale. The large internal
stresses induced by both rapid solidification of metal and the difference between the
thermal expansion coefficients of metal and glass (Chiriac et al., 1995) give rise to quite large
values of the switching field, as shown in Figures 20 and 21.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 23

Fig. 21. Axial inductive hysteresis loops of two rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires: one
with positive magnetostriction having the metallic nucleus diameter of 134 nm and the glass
coating thickness of 6 m and the other one with nearly zero magnetostriction having the
metallic nucleus diameter of 180 nm and the glass coating thickness of 5.6 m.

Fig. 22. Axial magnetization vs. axial field MOKE hysteresis loop for the rapidly solidified
amorphous nanowire with positive magnetostriction (left) and for the one with nearly zero
magnetostriction (right).

The direct relation between the value of the switching field and the glass to metal ratio is
well known (Chiriac et al., 1997). In case of the (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 samples
magnetostriction is much smaller leading to smaller values of the switching field. Thus,
there is a wide range of possibilities to adjust the value of the switching field by changing
the composition or by partially or fully removing the glass coating. First glass removal
experiments have been successful, with the glass coating being thinned down to 10 nm.
The difference between the values of the switching field for the bulk and surface loops
originate in the surface defects of the metallic nucleus as well as in the demagnetizing effect,
24 Advanced Magnetic Materials

which are expected to cause a slight magnetization ripple at the surface, i.e. small local
deviations of the magnetization from the axial direction. Such deviations are more easily
emphasized in MOKE measurements on nearly zero magnetostrictive samples, when the
field is applied transversally to the nanowire.
In order to substantiate the existence of the single domain structure in the rapidly solidified
glass-coated amorphous magnetic nanowires, further investigations by means of FMR
have been performed on positive magnetostrictive nanowires. The aim was to investigate
the effect of the large magnetoelastic term at the wire surface, where the outer shell should
exist.
Figure 23 shows the derivative microwave absorption spectrum of the Fe77.5Si7.5B15
amorphous nanowire (left). For comparison, the spectrum of a rapidly solidified 800 nm
submicron amorphous wire with the same composition is given (right).
The FMR spectrum of the submicron wire displays split resonance peaks, which reflect a
complex anisotropy, which may indicate the presence of the complex core-shell domain
structure. On the other hand, the FMR spectrum of the rapidly solidified amorphous
nanowire does not display such a split, showing a single anisotropy direction at all
frequencies, which supports the existence of a single domain structure.

Fig. 23. Microwave absorption spectrum of the 134 nm Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous nanowire
(left) and of an 800 nm Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wire (right) at 10.5 GHz.

Thus, both FMR and hysteresis loop measurements (inductive and MOKE) point to the
existence of a single domain structure in rapidly solidified amorphous glass-coated
nanowires. The large magnetoelastic term cannot exceed the shape anisotropy in positive
magnetostrictive amorphous nanowires. This is even less likely to happen in the nearly zero
magnetostrictive nanowires, given their much smaller magnetoelastic term.
The uniaxial magnetization in the whole volume of the amorphous nanowire is favored by
shape anisotropy. This means that the nanowires are too thin to allow the formation of a
more complex magnetic domain structure. Therefore, such nanowires are the perfect
candidates for spintronic applications based on the domain wall propagation along the
entire length of the sample.
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 25

4. Domain wall velocity in rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires and

submicron wires
The study of the domain wall velocity in bistable submicron amorphous wires with positive
and nearly zero magnetostriction prepared by rapid solidification from the melt is closely
linked to the purpose for which submicron wires have been prepared, i.e. to understand the
characteristics of domain wall propagation in the thinnest possible wires made by rapid
solidification, in order to propose new materials for spintronic applications. The effect of
wire dimensions on wall velocity is studied in conjunction with their magnetic behavior.
The role of magnetostriction in these ultrathin wires is also analyzed. The employed
experimental set-ups are those described in detail in section 2.2.
Figure 24 shows the dependence of wall velocity on applied field for Fe77.5Si7.5B15 positive
magnetostrictive amorphous submicron wires with different metallic nucleus diameters and
the same glass coating thickness of 15 m. Figure 25 illustrates the axial hysteresis loops for
the same samples.

Fig. 24. Wall velocity vs. applied field for Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wires with
positive magnetostriction, having different metallic nucleus diameters and a similar glass
coating thickness (15 m).

A correlation between the domain wall velocity and the value of the switching field is
observed, i.e. the larger the switching field, the larger the wall velocity, which indicates a
relation between the magnitude of the uniaxial anisotropy and the domain wall velocity.
However, something is different for the sample with the 350 nm nucleus diameter: the slope
of its wall velocity vs. applied field curve, i.e. the wall mobility, is significantly larger than
the slope of the curves which correspond to the other samples. This shows that something is
different about the uniaxial anisotropy of this sample. If in case of the thicker samples one
would expect a closely related cause of the uniaxial anisotropy with the case of typical
amorphous microwires, i.e. the magnetoelastic coupling between the large axial internal
stresses and the positive magnetostriction, in case of the thinnest one, the role of
magnetoelastic anisotropy is taken over by the shape anisotropy, as mentioned in the
previous sections.
26 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 25. Axial hysteresis loops for Fe77.5Si7.5B15 submicron amorphous wires with positive
magnetostriction, having different metallic nucleus diameters and a similar glass coating
thickness (15 m).

Thus, the effect of internal stresses is diminished as the metallic nucleus diameter decreases
below a certain threshold, and the applied field becomes much more efficient in moving the
domain wall, which results in increased mobility and velocity values. Therefore, the
increased contribution of shape anisotropy results in larger wall velocity and mobility
values in the case of positive magnetostrictive submicron wires.
The largest wall velocity value is close to 1500 m/s, close to the largest values reported in
microwires with the same composition and with typical dimensions in the range 1-50 m.
Figure 26 shows the dependence of wall velocity on applied field for two
(Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wire samples with different
metallic nucleus diameters and the same glass coating thickness of 13 m. Figure 27
illustrates the corresponding axial hysteresis loops. The correlation between wall velocity
and uniaxial anisotropy, via switching field, is also observed in the case of submicron wires
with nearly zero magnetostriction. However, in this case only shape anisotropy contributes
to larger wall velocity values, as opposed to the case of positive magnetostrictive
microwires, in which magnetoelastic anisotropy also has some contribution, at least down to
a certain threshold. Given the negative sign of magnetostriction in the nearly zero
magnetostrictive samples, the magnetoelastic anisotropy would lead to transverse uniaxial
anisotropy instead of an axial one. Therefore, it is clear that the magnetic bistability of these
samples originates in an axial anisotropy determined by shape anisotropy only.
The maximum velocity values measured in nearly zero magnetostrictive submicron wires
are slightly larger at about 1600 m/s than those measured in positive magnetostrictive ones.
Nevertheless, these large velocities are obtained at much smaller values of the applied field
in comparison with the case of positive magnetostrictive samples, i.e. 200 to 600 A/m as
compared to 0.7 to 18 kA/m. Again, wall mobility is larger in thinner submicron wires,
similar to the case of positive magnetostrictive samples, which substantiates the essential
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 27

Fig. 26. Wall velocity vs. applied field for two (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous
wires with nearly zero magnetostriction, having different metallic nucleus diameters and
the same glass coating thickness (13 m).

Fig. 27. Axial hysteresis loops for two (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 submicron amorphous wires
with nearly zero magnetostriction, having different metallic nucleus diameters and the same
glass coating thickness (13 m).

role played by shape anisotropy in both types of submicron wires. The wall velocity values
are comparable to those measured in planar NiFe nanowires (Atkinson et al., 2003),
although the mobility values are significantly larger in the case of nearly zero
magnetostrictive submicron wires. Thus, both the wire dimensions and the magnetostriction
are important as concerns the domain wall velocity and mobility values in rapidly solidified
28 Advanced Magnetic Materials

amorphous submicron wires. Wire dimensions influence the shape anisotropy, whilst
magnetostriction affects the magnetoelastic anisotropy. Both anisotropy types play an
important role in submicron wires with positive magnetostriction. In negative
magnetostrictive ones, only shape anisotropy plays an essential role.
Figure 28 illustrates the field dependence of the domain wall velocity in the 134 nm rapidly
solidified nanowire with positive magnetostriction (left) and in the 180 nm one with nearly
zero magnetostriction (right).

Fig. 28. Wall velocity vs. applied field for a rapidly solidified Fe77.5Si7.5B15 amorphous
nanowire with positive magnetostriction, having the metallic nucleus diameter of 134 nm
and the glass coating thickness of 6 m (left) and for a (Co0.94Fe0.06)72.5Si12.5B15 nearly zero
magnetostrictive one with the metallic nucleus diameter of 180 nm and the glass coating
thickness of 5.6 m (right).

For the positive magnetostrictive sample the maximum wall velocity, reached at an applied
field larger than 20 kA/m, is above 1360 m/s. Nevertheless, even at an applied field just
above the value of the switching field the wall velocity is larger than 1200 m/s. These values
are also comparable to those reported in planar NiFe nanowires (Atkinson et al., 2003) and
they are expected to improve after glass removal. Although the mobility of the wall is rather
small (velocity does not increase much with the applied field), this aspect is also expected to
significantly improve after glass removal as a result of stress relief and decrease of the
switching field. Wall velocity values are larger, over 1500 m/s, in the case of nearly zero
magnetostrictive samples, and they are attained at much smaller values of the applied field.
The wall mobility in these nanowires is also much larger. This shows the importance of
composition for spintronic applications. These results are important as concerns the future
application of rapidly solidified nanowires and submicron wires in spintronic devices.

5. Conclusions
Rapidly solidified magnetic nanowires and submicron wires have low production costs and
their properties can be accurately tailored through a variety of parameters, known from
Rapidly Solidified Magnetic Nanowires and Submicron Wires 29

their larger precursors – the amorphous microwires: the diameter of the metallic nucleus,
the glass coating thickness, their ratio, and the composition, which decides the sign and
magnitude of the magnetostriction constant. These tailoring parameters are adjustable
through the preparation process. Post-production processing, such as various types of
annealing (furnace, Joule heating, field-annealing, stress-annealing) as well as the post-
production partial or full removal of the glass coating can be also used to tailor the magnetic
properties. Tailoring parameters facilitate the fine tuning of nanowire and submicron wire
properties. Another advantage of the rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires and
submicron wires is that they can be prepared at sample lengths which basically exceed all
the current requirements of applications based on nanowire samples.
The preparation of these materials has been successful since it was initially based on well
known materials, which have been extensively studied at the larger micro scale. We have
been able to prepare them at a much smaller scale, the nano and submicron scale, aiming to
preserve their specific characteristics and properties within certain limits.
Future work will focus on tailoring the wall propagation characteristics, such as velocity and
mobility. The technical solutions used for the preparation of amorphous magnetic
nanowires should be extended, to permit the preparation of a much larger range of
compositions. Such development would lead to novel applications, e.g. medical, various
sensors, controlled motion of particles. Magnetic nanowires are also suitable for shielding
applications at very high frequencies.

6. Acknowledgment
Work supported by the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports
through the NUCLEU Program (Contracts No. 09-43 N, 01 02, 02 04, and PN 09-43 01 01)
and through the PARTENERIATE Program under Contract No. 82-096/2008 (NADEX).

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 2

M-Type Barium Hexagonal Ferrite Films

Mingzhong Wu
Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins,
USA

1. Introduction
Magnetic garnet materials such as yttrium iron garnet (YIG) have been widely used as active
components in many microwave devices.1,2,3 These devices include resonators, filters,
circulators, isolators, and phase shifters. They have had a major impact on the advancement
of microwave technology. The underlying physical effects in microwave magnetic devices
include ferromagnetic resonance (FMR), magnetostatic wave (MSW) propagation, Faraday
rotation, and field displacement. Whatever the basis for a given device, the operation
frequency is determined essentially by the FMR frequency of the garnet material. The
magnetic garnets are low-magnetization, low-magnetocrystalline-anisotropy materials and,
therefore, typically have a low FMR frequency in the GHz range. This imposes an upper
limit on the practical operation frequency of compact YIG-based devices in the 10-18 GHz
frequency range.
Presently, there is a critical need for millimeter (mm) wave devices which operate in the
frequency range from about 30 GHz to 100 GHz.4,5,6 This need is critical for three reasons. (1)
Millimeter waves are recognized as a broadband frequency resource that can offer various
wireless access applications. (2) The need for broadband telecommunication capabilities will
mandate the use of mm-wave frequencies in next-generation satellite systems. (3)
Electromagnetic radiation at mm-wave frequencies can penetrate clouds, fog, and many
kinds of smoke, all of which are generally opaque to visible or infrared light.
In principle, one can extend the operation frequency of current microwave magnetic devices
to the mm-wave frequency range through the use of high external magnetic bias fields. In
practical terms, however, the use of high external fields is usually impractical because of the
increased device size and weight, as well as incompatibility with monolithic integrated
circuit technology.
One important strategy for the above-described frequency extension is to use M-type
barium hexagonal ferrite BaFe12O19 (BaM) films as a replacement for those magnetic garnets.
BaM films can have a very high magnetocrystalline anisotropy field. This high internal field
can facilitate ferromagnetic resonance and hence device operation at mm-wave frequencies.
The films can also have high remanent magnetization that can allow for device operation in
absence of external magnetic fields, namely, self-biased operation, and frequency tuning
using very low external fields.
To this end, significant efforts have been made in recent years that range from material
preparations to structure and property characterizations and also to device applications.
34 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Emphasis has been placed on the optimization of deposition processes for low-loss, self-biased
BaM thin films,7,8,9,10 the deposition of BaM thin films on “non-conventional” substrates, such
as semiconductor substrates 11,12,13,14 and metallic substrates,15 the fabrication of BaM thick
films on semiconductor substrates,16,17 the demonstration of BaM-based planar mm-wave
devices, 18,19,20,21,22,23,10,24 the development of BaM-based ferromagnetic/ferroelectric
heterostructures, 25,26,27,28,29 and the study of multiferroic effects in single-phase BaM
materials.30 A variety of different techniques have been used to fabricate BaM film materials.
These include pulsed laser deposition (PLD), 7,8,9,10,11,12,28,31 liquid phase epitaxy (LPE), 32,33,34,35
RF magnetron sputtering,36,37,19,38,39,40 molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), 14 metallo-organic
decomposition (MOD), 15 chemical vapor deposition (CVD),41 and screen printing.16,17 The
device demonstration includes both numerical 20,21,22 and experimental efforts. 18,21,22,23,10,24 The
devices demonstrated include phase shifters, 21 filters, 22,23,10 ,24 circulators, 18 and isolators.19
This chapter reviews the main advances made in the field of BaM materials and devices over
the past five years. Section 2 gives a brief introduction to hexagonal ferrites first and then
describes in detail the structure and properties of BaM materials. This section serves to
provide a background for the discussions in the following sections. Section 3 reviews the
advances made in the development of BaM film materials. Section 3.1 describes the
deposition of low-loss, high-remanent-magnetization BaM thin films on sapphire substrates
by PLD techniques.10 Section 3.2 discusses the deposition of BaM thin films on metallic
substrates by the MOD method.15 Section 3.3 reviews the deposition of BaM thin films on
semiconductor substrates by PLD and MBE techniques.13,14 Section 3.4 describes the
fabrication of BaM thick films on semiconductor substrates by screen printing.16,17 Section 4
reviews the demonstration of BaM thin film-based mm-wave notch filters10,24 and phase
shifters.21 Finally, Section 5 discusses future work in the field of BaM materials and devices.

2. Structure and properties of M-type barium hexagonal ferrites (BaM)

2.1 Building blocks of hexagonal ferrites
In many solids, the atoms look like attracting hard spheres and are packed as closely as
possible.42,43 Figure 1 shows a close-packed layer of identical spheres which occupy positions
A. This layer is formed by placing each sphere in contact with six others in a plane. A
second and identical layer of spheres can be placed on top of this layer and occupy positions
B. Each sphere in the second layer is in contact with three spheres in the first layer. A third
layer of spheres may be added in two ways: they can occupy either positions A or positions
C. In principle, there are an infinite number of ways of stacking the close-packed layers.
Two very common stacking sequences are “ABAB…” and “ABCABC…”. The first one gives
a hexagonal close-packed (hcp) structure. The second one gives a structure known as face-
centred cubic (fcc).
Hexagonal ferrites consist of close-packed layers of oxygen ions O2-.44,45 In certain layers,
some oxygen ions are replaced by barium ions Ba2+, which are approximately of the same
size as oxygen ions. These close-packed layers form six fundamental blocks, S, S*, R, R*, T,
and T*, among which the S*, R*, and T* blocks can be obtained simply through the rotation
of the S, R, and T blocks, respectively, by 180 about the c axis. The different stacking of the
fundamental blocks builds up materials with different structures and physical properties.
Table I lists the chemical compositions and building blocks of five types of hexagonal
ferrites. As indicated in Table I, M-type hexagonal ferrites are built from the stacking of S, R,
M-Type Barium Hexagonal Ferrite Films 35

S*, and R* blocks. The structures of S and R blocks are described below. One can refer to
Refs. [44] and [45] for the structure of T blocks.

Type Formula Build-up

M BaFe12O19 SRS*R*
W BaMe2Fe16O27 SSRS*S*R*
Y Ba2Me2Fe12O22 STST
Z Ba3Me2Fe24O41 RSTSR*S*T*S*
U Ba4Me2Fe36O60 RSR*S*TS*
Table I. Compositions and building blocks of five types of hexagonal ferrites44,45,46

Fig. 1. A close-packed layer of spheres occupying positions A. A second and identical layer
of spheres can be placed on top of this layer and occupy positions B or C.

Figure 2 shows the structure of an S block. Figure 2(b) shows a structure with oxygen layers
only, and Figure 2(a) shows the top oxygen layer when viewed from above. For a better
presentation, the ratio of the oxygen ion diameter to the oxygen-oxygen distance is set to be
much smaller than it actually is. Figure 2(a) shows a 60 rhombus consisted of close-packed
oxygen ions; and the structure in Fig. 2(b) clearly shows that an S block is built from the
stacking of close-packed oxygen layers in an “ABCABC…” sequence. It is important to note
that an S block consists of only two oxygen layers, although three layers are shown in Fig.
2(b). For example, one can consider an S block consisting of the top and middle oxygen
layers, with the bottom layer belonging to the underneath block. Therefore, one can see that
each S block contains eight oxygen ions, with four from each layer.
Figure 2(c) shows a structure with both oxygen ions and cations. The small solid circles
show the cations on tetrahedral sites, while the small open circles show the cations on
octahedral sites. Between the top and middle oxygen layers, there are one cation at an
octahedral site and five cations at tetrahedral sites. The octahedral site is formed by three
36 Advanced Magnetic Materials

Fig. 2. Structure of S block. (a) Top oxygen layer viewed from above. (b) S block structure
with oxygen layers only. (c) S block structure with both oxygen ions and cations.

oxygen ions in the top layer and three in the middle layer and, therefore, lies halfway
between the top and middle oxygen layers. Among five tetrahedral cations, one occupies the
tetrahedral site formed by three oxygen ions in the top layer and another in the middle
layer; the other four occupy the corners of a 60 rhombus, with each shared by four 60
rhombuses. Overall, between the top and middle layers, there are one cation at an
octahedral site and two cations at tetrahedral sites.
Between the middle and bottom oxygen layers, there are five cations at the octahedral sites,
all of which are within a 60 rhombus halfway between the oxygen layers. Among these five
cations, four are at the middle points of four rhombus sides, with each shared by two
rhombuses; and the other is at the center of the rhombus and is not shared by any other
rhombuses. Overall, there are three octahedral cations between the middle and bottom
oxygen layers.
In total, each S block contains eight oxygen ions in close-packed plans, four cations at
octahedral sites, and two cations at tetrahedral sites. If the cations are iron ions, the block
contains two formula units of Fe3O4.
Three points should be noted about S blocks. First, the hexagonal structure of the S block is
clearly shown in Fig. 2. The vertical axis of the structure is referred to as the c axis. Second,
the S block is often referred to as a spinel block. This is because the oxygen ions and cations
are so distributed that they form precisely the cubic spinel arrangement with the [111] axis
M-Type Barium Hexagonal Ferrite Films 37

vertical. Third, among the three types of fundamental blocks which make up hexagonal
ferrites, the S block is the smallest one and is the only one containing no barium ions.
Figure 3 shows the structure of an R block. Figure 3(b) shows a structure with oxygen and
barium ions only. Figure 3(a) shows the top layer of the structure when viewed from above.
Figures 3(a) and 3(b) clearly show that an R block consists of three close-packed oxygen
layers, with one oxygen ion in the middle layer replaced by a barium ion Ba2+. These layers
are stacking on each other in an “ABAB…” sequence. The top, middle, and bottom layers
contain four, three, and four oxygen ions, respectively. Overall, each R block contains eleven
oxygen ions and one barium ion.
Figure 3(c) shows a structure with all ions. The small solid circles show four cations which
occupy the trigonal sites in the middle layer. As each trigonal site is shared by four 60
rhombuses, only one of these four cations belongs to the structure unit shown. The small
open circles show five cations at octahedral sites. Among the five sites, one lies halfway
between the top and middle oxygen layers, one lies halfway between the middle and bottom
oxygen layers, and three are underneath the bottom oxygen layer.

Fig. 3. Structure of R block. (a) The top oxygen layer viewed from above. (b) R block
structure with oxygen and barium ions only. (c) R block structure with all ions.

In total, each R block contains eleven oxygen ions, one barium ion, one cation in a trigonal
site, and five cations in octahedral sites. If those cations are iron ions, one can denote an R
block by BaFe6O11. Note that the R block has an hcp structure thanks to the “ABAB…”
stacking sequence; the c axis of the structure is along the vertical axis.
38 Advanced Magnetic Materials

It should be noted that both 2Fe3O4 (S block) and BaFe6O11 (R block) are not electrically
neutral if the iron ions are trivalent. This, however, is not a problem, because hexagonal
ferrites are always made up of more than one type of block. For example, the combination of
one S block and one R block yields BaFe12O19 which is indeed electrically neutral when the
iron ions are Fe3+.

2.2 Structure and static magnetic properties of BaM materials

The M-type barium hexagonal ferrite, often called BaM, has a chemical formula of BaFe12O19,
with all of the iron ions being trivalent. The crystal structure of BaM is the same as that of
the mineral magnetoplumbite. Each elementary cell is formed by the stacking of S, R, S*, and
R* blocks and, therefore, contains ten layers of close-packed oxygen ions. Among these ten
layers, two layers contain barium ions, as shown by the middle layer in the structure in Fig.
3(b). The two layers within the S (or S*) block, the layer right above the block, and the layer
right underneath the block are stacked in an “ABCABC…” sequence. The three layers
within the R (or R*) block, the layer right above the block, and the layer right underneath the
block are stacked in an “ABAB…” sequence.
The distribution of the iron ions in the BaM lattice sites and the orientation of their magnetic
moments are summarized in Table II. A detailed description of these sites is given in Section
2.1. Magnetically, ferrite materials have majority and minority sublattices. Within each
sublattice, the magnetic moments are parallel to each other. The moments in two sublattices,
however, are opposite to each other. The difference between the total moments of two
magnetic sublattices determines the saturation magnetization of the material. In Table II, an
upward-directed arrow indicates a contribution to the majority magnetic sublattice, while a
downward-directed arrow indicates a contribution to the minority magnetic sublattice.

Block Formula Tetrahedral Octahedral Trigonal Net

S 2Fe3O4 2↓ 4↑ - 2↑
R BaFe6O11 - 3 ↑, 2↓ 1↑ 2↑
S* 2Fe3O4 2↓ 4↑ - 2↑
R* BaFe6O11 - 3 ↑, 2↓ 1↑ 2↑
Table II. Distributions of Fe3+ ions in a unit cell of BaM materials44,45

The data in Table II indicates that a full unit cell of BaM materials contains two formula
units of BaFe12O19; the net magnetic moment in each unit cell is equal to the moment of eight
Fe3+ ions. The magnetic moment of each Fe3+ ion is usually taken as 5B. As a result, each
unit cell of BaM is expected to have a net magnetic moment of 40B. One can define the
vertical axis of the building blocks as the c axis of the unit cell and one of the sides of the 60
oxygen rhombus (see Fig. 2(a)) as the a axis. In these terms, the lengths of the c and a axes of
a BaM unit cell are about 23.2 Å and 5.89 Å, respectively. With these parameters, one can
estimate the saturation induction 4Ms of BaM as about 6680 G. This value is close to the
4Ms value measured at low temperatures.45 At room temperature, BaM bulk crystals
usually have a 4Ms value of about 4700 G;47,48 while BaM thin films usually show a slightly
smaller value.
BaM materials have uniaxial magneto-crystalline anisotropy, with the easy axis along the c
axis of the hexagonal structure. The effective anisotropy field Ha is about 17 kOe.45 This field
M-Type Barium Hexagonal Ferrite Films 39

is three orders of magnitude higher than that in YIG materials. It is this strong built-in field
that facilitates ferromagnetic resonances in BaM materials at mm-wave frequencies with no
need of large external bias fields and, thereby, makes the research field of BaM materials
and devices very attractive and promising.
Table III gives the room-temperature structure and physical properties of BaM crystals as
well as the Curie temperature of BaM materials.

Parameter Value Reference

Lattice constant c 23.2 Å [45]
Lattice constant a 5.89 Å [45]
X-ray density 5.28 g/cm3 [44]
Curie temperature Tc 725 K [45]
Exchange energy parameter Aex 6.410-7 erg/cm [7]
Saturation induction 4Ms 4700 G [47], [48]
Effective anisotropy field Ha 17 kOe [45]
Damping constant  710-4 [7]
Table III. Properties of M-type barium hexagonal ferrites

2.3 Ferromagnetic resonances in BaM materials

One typically makes use of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) techniques to characterize
microwave and mm-wave losses in ferrite materials. Figure 4 shows the FMR effect. Figure
4(a) gives a schematic presentation of the FMR operation, where the magnetization M
absorbs energy from the microwave magnetic field h and maintains a fixed angle of
precession around the static magnetic field H. The FMR effect manifests itself in a peak
response in the measurement of the microwave power absorption in the material as a
function of the static magnetic field, as shown in Fig. 4(b). The full width at the half
maximum of this so-called FMR absorption curve is usually taken as the FMR linewidth
HFMR. The origin of the FMR linewidth differs significantly in different materials. In
ferrites, typical relaxation processes that contribute to HFMR include magnon-phonon
scattering, two-magnon scattering, charge transfer relaxation, and processes associated with
slowly relaxing impurity and rapidly relaxing impurity.49,50 The identification and
quantization of each process demand extensive measurements and numerical analyses. For
this reason, one typically uses HFMR as a measure of the overall loss of the material. Very
often, FMR measurements are carried out with field modulation and lock-in detection
techniques, and the actual FMR data consist of the derivative of the power absorption curve,
as shown in Fig. 4(c). In this case, one measures the peak-to-peak FMR linewidth Hpp. If the
FMR profile is Lorentzian in shape, one can convert Hpp into HFMR simply by multiplying
Hpp by 3 . One can also conduct FMR measurements by keeping the field constant and
sweeping the frequency. The detail on the conversion between the field and frequency
linewidths is given in Section 4.1.
One usually measures FMR responses in BaM films with the application of an external
magnetic field H along the film easy axes. For a BaM film with the c axis out of the plane, the
magnetic torque equation yields an FMR frequency of
40 Advanced Magnetic Materials

f FMR   ( H  H a  4 M s ) (1)

where   2.8 MHz/Oe is the absolute value of the gyromagnetic ratio. For a film with the
c axis in the plane, the FMR frequency is given by

f FMR   ( H  H a )( H  H a  4 Ms ) (2)

y H z x
M

Fig. 4. Schematic presentation of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR)

The films prepared with different processes can show significantly different FMR linewidth
values. The lowest linewidth so far was reported by Song et al. for a BaM film grown by PLD
techniques.7 This film had an out-of-plane c-axis orientation and was 0.85 m thick. The film
showed a 60.3 GHz FMR linewidth HFMR of 27 Oe, which matched the value of single-
crystal BaM bulk materials. The frequency-dependent FMR measurements yielded a linear
response with a slope of 0.5 Oe/GHz, which corresponded to an effective damping constant
 of about 710-4.

3. Development of M-type barium hexagonal ferrite films

This section reviews the recent advances made in the development of BaM film materials.
The section consists of four subsections, each on a separate effort. The four efforts are (1) the
development of BaM thin films that have both low losses and high remanent
magnetizations, (2) the deposition of BaM thin films on metallic electrodes, (3) the growth of
BaM thin films on semiconductor substrates, and (4) the development of BaM thick films on
semiconductor substrates. The motivations and implications of each effort are described in
each subsection.

3.1 Development of low-loss, self-biased BaM thin films

In terms of device applications, BaM films with narrow FMR linewidths (HFMR) and high
remanent magnetizations (Mr) are very desirable. The narrow linewidth is critical for the
realization of low insertion losses for certain devices, while the high remanent
magnetization facilitates the operation of devices in absence of external magnetic bias fields,
namely, self-biased operation. As mentioned above, Song et al. succeeded in the PLD growth
of BaM thin films that showed an FMR linewidth as narrow as single-crystal BaM bulks.7
These films, however, showed a remanent magnetization much smaller than the saturation
magnetization (Ms). The main reason for this small remanent magnetization lies on the out-
Another Random Scribd Document
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chestnut, and sometimes nearly all the feathers are broadly tipped
with white.
The red grouse is found on moors and mountainsides wherever
there is plenty of heath or heather, and where it can obtain the
whortleberries, cranberries, and tender shoots of cotton-grass and
sedge upon which it feeds. And though it has many natural enemies,
such as hawks and crows, foxes and stoats, and while it is shot in
thousands by sportsmen, it never seems to decrease in abundance.
As a general rule the grouse does not fly much, but runs with
great swiftness among the heather. It makes a very rough nest of
straws and twigs in a hollow in the ground, and often sits so closely
on its eggs that it may almost be trodden on before it will move.
When the little ones are hatched they seem to know without being
taught how to conceal themselves in moments of danger, and if they
cannot find cover will flatten themselves against the ground, where
they look so much like stones that even the sharp eye of a hawk will
pass them by.
 FOUR GREAT GAME-BIRDS.
1. American Wild Turkey. 2. European Great Bustard.
3. European Blackcock. 4. South American Chaha.

Partridges
Partridges, of which our quail is an example, are found almost
everywhere, being carefully protected in most countries for purposes
of sport; and they lay so many eggs that they are scarcely likely to
become less plentiful. Few nests contain less than ten eggs, while
fifteen or even more are frequently laid; and instances have been
recorded in which as many as thirty-three eggs have been found in a
single nest, but in these cases two birds have most likely laid
together. The mother bird sits very closely—so closely, indeed, that
when she has nested in a meadow and the grass is being mown, she
often fails to move out of the way of the scythe in time, and is found
lying on the ground with her head cut off after the reapers have
passed by.
When the little ones are hatched, both parents go about with
them, and the covey, as it is called, keeps together all through the
autumn and winter.
 CHAPTER XXV
OSTRICHES, HERONS, CRANES, IBISES, Etc.

The ostrich is a very remarkable bird indeed.

In the first place, it is by far the largest of all living birds, for a
full-grown male ostrich is taller than a very tall man. Then its head is
somewhat like that of a camel, and its neck like that of a giraffe—
very long and slender, with scarcely any feathers on it. Next, its
wings are so small that they cannot be used for flight. All that an
ostrich does with its wings, indeed, is to spread them out when it is
running, so that they may help it in keeping its balance. And, finally,
its legs are as stout and as strong as those of a horse, while it has
only two toes on each foot.
Ostriches live in the great desert plains of Africa, where they are
mostly found in small flocks. Although they cannot fly, they can run
with very great speed, and in fair chase will distance even a swift
horse. But for some strange reason they always run in circles, so
that all that a hunter has to do is to notice whether they are
swerving to the right or to the left, and then to gallop across and cut
them off.
When an ostrich is running at full speed it takes most wonderful
strides, its toes scarcely touching the ground as it dashes along. By
careful measurement, indeed, it has been found that there is
sometimes a distance of no less than twenty-eight feet between its
footmarks!
The ostrich is rather a formidable bird, for it can kick forward
with terrific force. But if a man lies down when attacked by one he is
fairly safe, for the kick cannot be properly delivered at a height of
less than three feet. Or if he has a forked stick he can hold the bird
back by pressing the fork against its neck.
Ostriches' eggs are so large that one of them will make a good
meal for eight men. The bird does not make a nest, but scoops out a
hollow in the sand about three feet across and a foot deep, and then
arranges its eggs in it, each egg standing upright, and being lightly
covered with sand. Twenty eggs or more are often hatched together,
and in addition to these the bird generally lays a number round the
edges of the hole, which appear to serve as food for the young.
During the day the hen sits, the cock taking her place by night.
The appetite of the ostrich is proverbial, and it would really be
difficult to say what an ostrich will not swallow. Stones, coins,
bunches of keys, tobacco-pipes, newspapers done up for post,
brickbats, old shoes, and tenpenny nails have all been taken from its
crop; and it seems to be very seldom indeed that any of these things
disagree with it! Its natural food, however, consists chiefly of wild
melons, which also supply it with all the moisture that it needs.
Ostriches are very valuable to man, on account of the beautiful
plumes which are obtained from the male. These birds are therefore
kept in great numbers in ostrich-farms so that the plumes may be
regularly cut once in every year. As this does not destroy the bird, it
is proper to make use of these beautiful feathers as ornaments.

The Emu
In Australia the place of the ostrich is taken by the emu. It is a
smaller bird, however, though a full-grown hen—which is bigger than
the cock—is often six feet in height. And it has three toes upon each
foot instead of two.
The emu was formerly very common in many parts of Australia,
but it has been so terribly persecuted that it is fast becoming
exceedingly scarce. It is generally hunted with dogs, which are
trained to spring at the neck, so as to be out of reach of the terrible
feet. For the emu does not kick forward, as ostriches do, but strikes
sideways and backward, like a cow.
 The emu only lays six or seven eggs, which are of a beautiful
dark-green color, without any markings at all. They are laid in a
hollow scooped in the ground. During the nesting-season the female
bird utters a loud booming sound, which is due to a very curious
pouch in the throat.

Rheas
There are also several ostrich-like birds in South America which
are known as rheas. They inhabit the Argentine plains, and are not
nearly so large as the ostrich and the emu, but are quite as swift of
foot, so that it is not at all easy for a man mounted on even a fast
horse to overtake them. They are generally hunted with the bolas
which is a long cord with a heavy ball as each end, and is flung at
the bird in such a manner as to wind round its neck and hold it
prisoner.
Rheas always lay their eggs in hollows in the ground, and the
number of eggs in a nest seems to vary from twenty to twenty-four.
The male bird, apparently, sits upon them, the hen taking no part in
the task of hatching them out. Neither does she seem to take any
care of the little birds when at last they make their appearance, for
they always travel about with the cock.

Cassowaries
Of these there are a good many kinds. They are formed like the
ostrich and the emu, but have shorter necks, which are sometimes
wattled and are marked with patches of brilliant red and blue and
green. The legs are stout and the feet are perfectly enormous. But
their most striking feature is an odd bony crest upon the top of the
head, which is covered with naked skin.
Cassowaries are found only in Australia, New Guinea, Ceram, and
some of the neighboring islands, and, unlike all the preceding birds,
are dwellers in the forest. They are so shy that they are very seldom
seen, so that we do not know very much about their habits. The
Australian natives, however, often keep them in captivity, and treat
them almost as we treat poultry. But they are rather dangerous
creatures, for they can kick very hard with their great, strong feet,
and are very ready to attack any one who is a stranger to them.
Cassowaries only lay from three to five eggs, and it seems that
the cock bird alone sits on them, and that he also takes care of the
little ones after they are hatched.

Kiwis
More curious still are the kiwis of New Zealand, whose wings are
so very small, and so completely concealed under the feathers of the
body, that practically they may be said to have none at all. Besides
this, the beak is so long and slender that it reminds one of that of a
woodcock or a snipe. The nostrils are placed at the very tip of this
beak, which the bird appears to use by plunging it deeply into soft
ground, and then smelling for worms.
When it finds a worm it seems to coax rather than to pull it out
of the ground, and then throws up its head and swallows it whole.
Kiwis have several times been brought to the London Zoo, but
hardly any one ever saw them, for all day long they were fast asleep
among their straw. If the keeper took them out and woke them they
would just yawn once or twice, opening their beaks to the widest
possible extent, and then fall fast asleep again.
After dark, however, these birds become very lively, and will run
with such speed that even a dog can scarcely overtake them. This
shows that their natural habit is to go abroad and seek their food
during the night.
The egg of the kiwi is enormously large. Indeed, it is almost a
quarter of the size of the bird itself, and when two eggs have been
laid and the bird is sitting on them, the ends project beyond the
feathers on either side of its body.

Bustards
 The bustards also are able to run very well, and unlike the birds
belonging to the ostrich family, they are also able to fly.
The finest of these birds is the great bustard, which until about
the year 1840 was found wild in Great Britain. The cock is between
three and four feet in height, and the head and body together are
nearly four feet long, while when the wings are fully spread they
measure quite eight feet from tip to tip. The hen is a good deal
smaller.
The great bustard lives in wild, open plains, and is so extremely
wary that it is almost impossible to approach within gunshot. Except
during the nesting season it is found in small flocks, and both by day
and by night two of the party act as sentinels and stand always on
the watch, ready to give the alarm at the first sign of danger. They
have wonderfully sharp sight, and will detect a man long before they
can be seen by him. Almost the only way to shoot them, indeed, is
to dig a pit in the ground and hide inside it, covered over with
branches, until they pass by.
These magnificent birds are now found chiefly in the steppes of
Eastern Europe and Asia, where they feed upon seeds and grain,
and also upon insects and even upon small animals. They lay two or
three eggs in a hollow in the ground, in which sometimes, but not
always, they place a few grass-stems by way of a nest.

Cranes
Another tall and stately bird is the crane. It is found in one or
another species in all quarters of the world, living on plains and
marshes, coming north to breed, and retiring southward again
during the winter.
Cranes generally travel about in flocks, which nearly always fly in
the form of a wedge, each bird having its long legs stretched stiffly
out behind it. Each flock is under the guidance of a leader, and the
birds are most careful when they alight to do so in some open place
where they can see for a long distance in every direction, so as to
guard against the danger of being surprised by an enemy.
 Cranes are generally to be seen in marshy districts, where they
can find plenty of frogs, newts, and worms. But sometimes they will
make their way to a newly sown field and dig up all the grain. Their
nests are generally placed on the ground, among osiers or in reed-
beds, though now and then they will build on the very top of an old
ruin. The little brown crane of the western plains is the most familiar
American species.
The crowned crane, which is found in Northern and Western
Africa, is a very odd-looking bird, for it has a large bunch of upright
golden feathers on the top of its head, and a scarlet wattle on the
throat. From a little distance it really looks as if it were wearing a
bright yellow bonnet, tied with a bow of scarlet ribbon under its
chin!

Lapwings
The European lapwing, known to every one by the familiar
reference in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," represents the world-wide
family of plovers. They are beautiful birds with their black and white
plumage and the tuft of long feathers at the back of the head, and
very often one may see hundreds or even thousands of them
together. Early in the spring one may find their four long, pointed
eggs, which are olive brown in color, spotted and blotched with
brownish black, and are always laid in a little hollow in the bare
ground with their small ends inward in the form of a cross. But
somehow or other, although they are quite large eggs, it is very
difficult to see them, and you might pass close by a dozen nests,
and even look straight at them, and yet never notice the eggs at all.
Often, when some one happens to find a hen lapwing sitting on
her eggs, she will pretend to be wounded, and will flap and tumble
along the ground in the hope of making the intruder chase her, and
so of leading him away from her nest.
Sportsmen know of many other plovers, such as the golden, the
ringneck, the killdee, or killdeer, and several more, both American
and foreign.
 The Curlew
This is another plains-bird common to both continents, which
may often be noticed on moors or in marshes during the summer, or
on the sea-coast in the winter. But generally one only sees it in the
distance, for it is extremely wary, and takes to flight at the very
slightest alarm.
All through the winter months curlews live in flocks, and one may
hear them uttering their mournful cries in chorus together. But early
in the spring they separate, and each pair selects some little hollow
in the ground which may serve as a nest. In this they lay four pear-
shaped eggs, which are olive green in color, spotted with gray and
brown. When the eggs are hatched the parents take the greatest
care of their little ones, and often if any one comes too near the nest
they will fly round and round his head in the most excited manner,
and do their very best to drive him away.
In color the curlew is pale brown above, with darker spots and
streaks, and grayish white beneath. Its total length is about twenty-
four inches, and the beak is long and slender, with a downward
curve.

Ruffs
The ruff, a relative of the curlew, is remarkable for three reasons.
In the first place, during the breeding-season, the male bird has a
great frill or ruff of long feathers round his neck, which he can raise
and lower at will. In the next place, two male ruffs are never colored
alike, while sometimes they look so wholly different that it is quite
hard to believe that they can really belong to the same species. And,
in the third place, they are so dreadfully quarrelsome when the
nesting-season begins, that two male ruffs can never meet without
fighting. More than that, they actually have regular fighting-places,
to which numbers of the birds resort when they want to settle their
quarrels! But although they fight very savagely, they never seem to
do each other much harm.
 Ruffs are hardly known in America, except in Alaska, but at one
time they were very common in the marshy parts of England.

The Woodcock
The woodcock is a bird of wooded swamps. It is valued by
sportsmen, because difficult to shoot and delicate to eat. They lay
their eggs in a hollow in the ground, which they line with dry grass
and leaves. When the mother bird is sitting it is almost impossible to
see her, for she nearly always nests among dead ferns, which are of
exactly the same hues as her own plumage. Generally, indeed, it is
her eyes that are noticed, and if she only had the sense to keep
them shut she would probably never be detected at all.
Woodcocks are hardly ever seen unless they are disturbed, for
they hide during the daytime in thick bushes in woods, and only
come out to feed in the evening. Their food consists chiefly of
worms, which they pull out of soft, muddy ground by means of their
long, slender beaks.
If two male woodcocks meet during the nesting-season they
almost always quarrel, and will fight nearly as savagely as ruffs.

The Snipe
In appearance and habits the snipe is something like the
woodcock, but it is considerably smaller, and is found in damp,
marshy ground instead of in woods. When it is flushed it flies away
for a few yards quite straight, and then begins to twist and turn
about in a most extraordinary way, changing the direction of its flight
at almost every yard. In consequence of this habit it is not at all an
easy bird to shoot.
The male snipe is very fond of rising to a great height in the air,
and there uttering his curious cry of "chick! chick! chick-a!" over and
over again. At the same time he also makes a strange drumming
sound, which seems to be caused in some way by the motion of the
wings, as it is only produced while he is "stooping" down toward the
ground.
 The snipe generally nests in the middle of a tussock of coarse
grass or rushes, where it lays four buff or olive-green eggs marked
with dark-brown blotches.

The Heron
One of our finest American birds is the heron, which you may
often see flying high in the air, with its long legs stretched stiffly out
behind it. And sometimes you may see it standing quite motionless
in the shallower parts of a stream, watching for the fishes on which
it feeds. After a time it will slowly stoop, plunge its long beak into
the water, and draw it out again with a minnow, or a perch, or a frog
struggling in its grip. Then it holds its beak almost upright, gives a
gobble and a gulp—and the fish or the frog disappears!
The heron feeds largely on frogs, mice, insects, and worms, as
well as upon fishes. And more than once it has been known to
capture and swallow a small snake.
Herons build their nests in the upper branches of tall trees,
making them of sticks and twigs, lined with grass and roots. A
number of these birds generally nest together in the same clump of
trees, just as rooks do, and in each nest are laid either three or four
bluish-green eggs, without any markings at all.
If a heron is attacked, it uses its long, dagger-like beak with
great readiness, and always tries to strike at the eyes of its enemy.
Herons are of many kinds, the great blue one being the finest of the
tribe.

Storks
The stork is found in most parts of Europe, and also in Asia and
Northern Africa, but no stork lives in America.
When storks are migrating, they fly in great flocks, which
sometimes consist of many thousand birds. As soon as they arrive,
they spread themselves over the country, being especially fond of
marshy districts, where they can find plenty of frogs, toads, lizards,
and the other small creatures upon which they feed. But they also
devour large quantities of the offal which they find in the streets of
the villages and towns.
In Holland and Germany storks breed in great numbers. Their
nests, which are usually placed on the tops of chimneys, are little
more than clumsy piles of sticks, and as fresh sticks are added every
year, they gradually get bigger and bigger until at last they reach a
very great size. From three to five pure white eggs are laid, and the
young birds remain in the nest until they are well able to fly.

The Ibis
Very much like storks in some ways are the ibises, which are
found in many parts of Asia, Africa, and America. They are generally
found in flocks, which live in marshes or on the banks of rivers and
lakes, where they spend most of their time dabbling in the water
with their long beaks in search of food.
One of these birds was worshiped by the Egyptians of old, who
treated it with the greatest reverence during life, and carefully
embalmed its body when it died. For this reason it is known as the
sacred ibis, and in every large art museum you may see ibis
mummies, which were taken from the tombs of the kings. In color
this bird is snowy white, with a black head and neck, and long black
plumes on the hinder part of the back. You may generally see it in a
zoo, together with the beautiful scarlet ibis, whose plumage is bright
red in color, with black tips to the wings.
 CHAPTER XXVI
SWIMMING BIRDS

In the birds belonging to this group the feet are webbed, so that
they may be used as paddles. And some of them are very curious
indeed.

Flamingo
First of all, there is the well-known red and white flamingo, which
is quite an extraordinary bird, for it has extremely long, stilt-like legs,
and an extremely long, snake-like neck, which it can twist and coil
about as easily as if it were just a piece of rope. There is no part of
its body which a flamingo cannot reach with its beak, so that it can
preen its feathers quite easily. And when it wants to feed it wades
into the water, bends down its long neck, turns its head upside
down, so that its forehead rests upon the bottom, and scoops up
great mouthfuls of mud. Then, by means of the grooves at the sides
of the bill, it gets rid of the mud, while all the grubs, etc., which
were lying buried in it, are left behind to be swallowed.
The nest of the flamingo is a cone-shaped heap of mud,
sometimes as much as two feet high, with a little hollow at the top
to contain eggs. Thousands of these birds nest together, and when
they are sitting they look just like a great rosy-white cloud resting
upon the ground. And if they are startled and fly away, their nests
look as though hundreds of children had been making big sand-pies
on the beach and neatly arranging them in rows. But such a sight as
this can now be seen only in some almost inaccessible tropical
islands, for these birds have been greatly persecuted by feather-
hunters and others, and are rare everywhere near civilization. They
used to be common in Florida and all about the Gulf of Mexico,
where now only a few exist.
Flamingoes are found in the warmer parts of all the great
continents except Australia. Nine different kinds are known, some of
which stand well over six feet in height.

Geese, Swans, and Ducks

Of wild geese there are at least forty species, which are found in
almost all parts of the world.
The graylag goose which breeds in the British Isles, seems to be
the ancestor of the domestic geese that we see in every farmyard. It
lives in flocks, which frequent marshes, lakes, and boggy moors
during the greater part of the year, but often visit the sea-coast in
winter. Sometimes, too, they may be seen near the mouth of a great
river. They are very shy birds, and when sportsmen wish to shoot
them they have to resort to all kinds of tricks in order to approach
them without being seen.
When wild geese fly, they generally do so in the form of a half-
opened pair of compasses, with the angle in front. But now and then
they may be seen in the air in an irregular wavy line. As they fly they
make a curious "gaggling" cry, which can be heard from a very long
distance.
The nest of this goose is made of grass and flags, and is
generally placed at the base of a tussock of coarse grass. It usually
contains six plain white eggs.
Swans, too, are found wild in many parts of the world, and used
to be almost as numerous as ducks or geese both on the inland
lakes and along the coasts of the United States, but now have
become rare and shy. All the species breed in the arctic regions, and
appear among us only on their migrations in spring and fall.
Swans are most graceful birds in the water, and as their limbs are
set very far back they can swim with great ease. But for the same
reason they are very clumsy upon dry ground, and waddle along in
the most awkward way, seeming to find it very difficult to keep their
balance. All those in our parks are tame; but during the nesting-
season the male swan generally becomes very savage, and will
attack any one who ventures too near to his nest. And as a single
stroke from his wing is sufficient to break a man's arm, he is apt to
be dangerous when unfriendly.
The nest of the swan is a very large structure of reeds, rushes,
and grass, and is generally placed quite close to the water's edge. It
contains six or seven large greenish-white eggs.
A great many kinds of duck are known, but we can only mention
the common wild duck, which still visits rivers and lakes every winter
in considerable numbers, a few of which remain to breed.
The male duck is called the mallard, and from October till May he
is a very handsome bird, with a dark-green head and neck, a white
collar round the lower part of his throat, brownish-gray wings,
chestnut-brown breast, and white hinder parts. But when he moults
he puts off this beautiful plumage, and for the next five months is
mottled all over with brown and gray, just like his mate.
Wild ducks are found chiefly in marshes and fens, and on the
borders of rivers and lakes. But when they come over in the autumn
they often spend the daytime out at sea resting on the water. They
make their nests of grass, lined with down from the mother bird's
own breast; and the little ones are able to swim as soon as they
leave the egg-shell. When they are about half grown they sometimes
use their wings in diving, and you may see them flapping their way
along beneath the surface, and really flying under water.

Cormorants
In Great Britain, due to its northern latitude, cormorants are
commonly seen where the coast is high and rocky; but in America
they are less often visible because they dwell mainly in the far north.
They are very odd birds. Sitting on rocks which overhang the water,
every now and then one will drop into the sea, splash about for a
moment or two, and then return to his perch. Then you may be
quite sure that he has caught and swallowed a fish. Sometimes you
may see them swimming along with their heads under water,
watching for victims in the depths below.
Cormorants are famous for their big appetites—perhaps it would
be more correct to say for their horrible greediness, for they will go
on eating till they simply cannot swallow another morsel, and yet will
try hard to catch every fish that comes near them. The little ones
feed in a most extraordinary way, for they actually poke their heads
down their mother's throat, and take as much food as they want
from her crop!
When these birds really feel that they have had enough to eat,
they sit upon a rock for an hour or two while they digest their
dinners. They also take this opportunity to dry their wings, and
spread them out to the fullest extent on either side, so that they
look very much like rows of black clothes hung out to dry!
In China cormorants are often trained to catch fish for their
masters, a strap being fastened round the lower part of the neck to
prevent them from swallowing their victims. They were formerly
used in England in just the same way.

Pelicans
More curious still are their cousins the pelicans, which have a
pouch of naked parchment-like skin under their long bills, capable of
holding quite two gallons of water. This pouch, as a rule, is folded
closely up under the beak, but when the bird is fishing, it packs
victim after victim into it until it is quite full, when it really looks
almost half as big as the body.
In this way pelicans carry back food for their hungry little ones.
But on their way they are sometimes robbed, for there is a kind of
large hawk which is very fond of eating fishes, but is not at all fond
of the trouble of catching them. So he waits till he sees a pelican
returning home from a fishing expedition, and then dashes at it, and
begins to beat it about the head with his wings. The poor frightened
pelican, thinking that it is about to be killed, opens its beak to
scream. This, of course, is just what the hawk wants, and snatching
a fish out of the pelican's pouch, he flies off with it in triumph.
Pelicans are very plentiful in many parts of the world, and are
often seen in vast flocks. We have two kinds in the United States
and Canada—the white and the brown. Both are more numerous on
the marshes and around the shallow lakes of the northwestern
plains than anywhere else, because they have been driven from their
former coast-resorts. All the birds in a flock will sometimes go out
fishing together. Arranging themselves in a great semicircle, about a
yard apart, they all paddle slowly forward, and in this way will drive
a great shoal of fish into shallow water, where they may be snapped
up without difficulty.

Sea-Gulls
These you know very well by sight, for they are common on all
parts of our coasts, and on many of our lakes, while numbers of
them may be seen even on the ornamental waters in the parks of
New York and other seaboard cities. In stormy weather, too, they
often fly inland, and sometimes great numbers of them may be seen
in newly plowed fields, hunting for worms and insects. Most of them
go north for the breeding-season, some visiting certain islands and
rocky cliffs in immense numbers, and making their nests of
seaweed; while others, like the black-headed gull, and the ringbill
nest in marshes, merely trampling down the broken tops of sedges
and reeds, and so forming a slight hollow in which to lay the eggs.
At least fifty different kinds of gulls are known. But many of them
are very difficult to distinguish, for their summer plumage may be
quite unlike that with which they are clothed during the winter, while
the young birds are not marked like their parents till they are two or
even three years old. Those which are most common on the Atlantic
coast are two or three kinds of herring-gulls, which formerly bred in
great numbers on all our sandy shores and islets, but now have
been driven to quieter regions in the far north. On the western
plains, around certain shallow lakes, live great colonies of ring-billed
and other small gulls, breeding in the extensive marshes.
Flying to and fro over the sea, or over a large inland lake, you
may sometimes see a number of birds which look like gulls, but are
much smaller, and have long, forked tails like swallows. These are
terns, or sea-swallows, as they are often called, and are most
elegant and graceful in their movements, gliding and sweeping
through the air, and twisting and turning with the most wonderful
swiftness and ease. They are summer visitors only, coming to us in
May and flying south again in September, and they breed on flat
shores, generally laying their two or three eggs in a small hollow in
the shingle. They feed on small fishes and shrimps, and also on the
sandhoppers and the various insects which are so plentiful upon the
beach.

AMERICAN WADING BIRDS.

1. Great White Egret. 2. Sandhill Crane.
 3. Great Blue Heron. 4. Whooping Crane.
5. White Pelican (Male). 6. Snow Goose.

Guillemots
Very common are guillemots on some coasts where there are
sea-fronting cliffs, and freedom from disturbance. Thus they abound
along the shores of Labrador and Greenland, and many varieties are
to be found along the northern coasts of Alaska, and about the
borders of the Arctic sea, often thronging in great numbers together
with puffins, kittiwakes, petrels, and gannets, each kind occupying
separate parts of the cliffs and living on friendly terms with their
neighbors.
Guillemots feed entirely upon fishes, which they chase under
water, using both their wings and feet, just as dabchicks do. They do
not make any nest, but lay a single egg on a bare ledge of rock
which is often only a very few inches wide. One would think that this
egg would be in great danger of being knocked over the edge. But it
is very large at one end and very much pointed at the other, so that
if it is struck it only rolls round and round. In color it is green or
blue, blotched and streaked with black.

The Albatross
One of the largest of all the sea-birds is the albatross, which is
found chiefly in the tropical seas. When the wings are fully spread,
they sometimes measure nearly twelve feet from tip to tip. Yet the
entire weight of the bird is not more than sixteen or seventeen
pounds. It often remains at sea for weeks or months together,
sometimes remaining in the air all through the night as well as all
through the day, and following ships for hundreds of miles in order
to feed upon the refuse which is thrown overboard. Its appetite is
enormous, for it has been known to gulp down a great piece of
whale's blubber, weighing between three and four pounds, and then
to return almost immediately for more!
 Great numbers of albatrosses nest together on uninhabited
islands, each pair scooping together a quantity of clay, grass, and
sedge, which they arrange in a conical heap about ten or twelve
inches high, with a little hollow at the top. Only a single egg is laid,
which is quite white, and is rather larger than that of a goose.

The Puffin and the Penguin

Two most curious birds must be mentioned in conclusion. The
first of these is the puffin, which is found plentifully in one or
another species on all northern coasts where there are bold cliffs. An
odder and more quaint-looking bird it would be difficult to imagine,
for it has a beak quite large enough for a bird six times its size, while
that beak, which is banded with bright crimson, gray, and brilliant
yellow, looks just as if it had been stuck on with glue! More than
that, it does not appear to fit very well; so that altogether, with its
short, squat body and stout little legs, the puffin is by no means a
graceful bird. It is often known as the sea-parrot.
On dry land, the puffin is very awkward, and can only waddle
along slowly and clumsily. But it is a good swimmer and diver, and
can chase and overtake small fishes with the greatest of ease. It is
also able to fly very well, and takes long journeys over the sea when
it comes to us in the spring, and again when it goes southward in
the autumn. It makes no nest, but finds a cranny, digs out a hole in
the face of a cliff to the depth of about three feet, and lays a single
grayish-white egg at the end of the hole.
Odder still is the penguin, whose wings are but little more than
flippers, with scales on their upper edges instead of feathers! It
cannot fly, of course; but it uses its wings for two purposes. For if it
is frightened upon land it throws itself down on its breast and
scuttles along on all fours, just as though its wings were legs, and if
it wants to chase a fish in the sea it swims with them, just as though
they were paddles.
There are a good many different kinds of penguins, all of which
are found in the southern hemisphere. On some of the islands in the
Pacific and Antarctic oceans they are found in immense numbers,
and have a curious way of standing side by side upon the shore in
long rows, with their flippers hanging down on either side of their
bodies. From a distance, indeed, they might almost be mistaken for
lines of soldiers standing at attention. When the breeding-season
begins they become very busy, picking up stones, carrying them
about with a great deal of fuss, and then carefully arranging them in
position, every now and then turning their beaks up to the sky,
waving their flippers, and making a curious gobbling noise. If a
sitting hen leaves her nest for a little, all the other hens become
greatly excited, and peck at her as she passes by in order to drive
her back again, croaking loudly in chorus, and evidently feeling
extremely indignant with her for neglecting her duties.
When these odd birds are sitting on a ledge of ice, and want to
get down into the sea, they often throw themselves upon their
breasts, and "toboggan" down the slope into the water!

REPTILES
 CHAPTER XXVII
TORTOISES, TURTLES, AND LIZARDS

We now come to the cold-blooded animals, which are divided

into three classes. First we have the reptiles, whose hearts are
formed of three chambers, and which breathe air by means of lungs.
Next come the amphibians, which are like the reptiles in many ways,
but which have to pass through a tadpole stage before they reach
the perfect form. And, thirdly, there are the fishes, whose hearts are
divided into two chambers only, and which breathe water by means
of gills.

Tortoises and Turtles

At the head of the reptiles stand the tortoises and turtles, whose
bodies are shut up in a kind of horny box, which we generally call
the shell. In reality, however, it is not a shell at all; for the upper
part, which we call the carapace, is a development of the spine and
the ribs, while the lower part, which is known as the plastron, is a
development of the breast-bone. These animals, in fact, have part of
their skeletons inside their bodies and part outside; so that they are
really shut up in their own bones!
The so-called shell of a tortoise or a turtle is always very hard
and strong, so that you can stand upon quite a small tortoise
without hurting it in the least and in most cases the head and legs
can be tucked away inside it, so that the animal is safely protected
from almost every foe.
None of the turtles and tortoises have any teeth. But the edges
of their jaws are so sharp and horny that they can often inflict a very
severe bite. Some of the larger turtles, indeed, could snap off the
fingers of a man's hand as easily as you could bite through a carrot!

TYPES OF WATER-BIRDS
1. Mandarin Duck. 2. Penguin.
3. Heron. 4. Pelican.
5. Bittern. 6. Flamingo. 7.
Crane.

Land-Tortoises
The most famous of all the tortoises is the common land-tortoise,
or Greek tortoise, which is found in many parts of the south of
Europe, and also in Asia Minor. This is the animal which is so often
kept as a pet, and about which so much pleasant literary interest
has gathered. It does not grow to any great size, but will live in a
garden for many years, crawling about by night as well as by day.
Early in the autumn it buries itself underground, and falls into a deep
sleep, from which it does not awake until the spring.
This tortoise is a vegetable-feeder, and is very fond of lettuce
leaves, more especially when they are quite crisp and fresh, so that
it can easily nip them to pieces with its sharp jaws. If they are rather
old and stringy, it will hold them down with its front feet while it
tears them asunder. And if you keep one of these animals as a pet,
and want to give it a great treat, there is nothing that it likes better
than a little milk. It is amusing to see how it drinks, for it first scoops
up a little milk in its lower jaw, just as if it were using a spoon, and
then holds up its head in order that the liquid may trickle down its
throat.
There are a good many other kinds of land-tortoises, some of
which grow to a very great size. The largest of all comes from the
Galapagos Islands, and is quite a giant; for some of them are more
than four feet long, and weigh between eight and nine hundred
pounds! These huge creatures, however, are now nearly extinct.

Turtles
The turtles are distinguished from the tortoises by the structure
of their feet, which are flattened out in such a way as to serve as
paddles in the water. For this reason these reptiles hardly ever come
upon land except when they want to lay their eggs; and they can
swim so well that they are often met with many hundreds of miles
out at sea.
One of the best known of these creatures is the hawksbill turtle,
which is so called because its mouth is shaped just like the beak of a
hawk. The carapace is made up of thirteen large scales, which
overlap one another for about a third of their length, just like the
slates on the roof of a house.
 These scales are very valuable, for the best tortoise-shell is
obtained from them. When they are first taken from the animal they
do not look like tortoise-shell at all, for they are dull and crumpled
and brittle. But after they have been boiled, and steamed, and
pressed for some hours they quite change their character, and
become so soft that they can easily be molded into any required
shape.
The eggs of this turtle are laid in a hole which the mother
scrapes in the sand, and are hatched by the heat of the sun. As soon
as the little turtles make their appearance they hurry off as fast as
they can toward the water. But they are very good to eat, and a
number of hungry animals and birds are always on the lookout for
them, so that a very great many are snapped up and devoured
before they can plunge into the waves.
The famous turtle soup, which is considered so great a dainty, is
made from the flesh of the green turtle, which is found most
plentifully off the island of Ascension and in the West Indies. It
grows to a great size, for it is often four feet six inches in length and
three feet in breadth, while it may weigh nearly three-quarters of a
ton. Of course it is not at all easy to capture such big creatures. But
they are generally pursued when they come on shore to lay their
eggs, and are turned over on their backs by means of a lever. They
are then perfectly helpless, and can be left lying where they are until
a number of others have been overturned in the same way, when
they are lifted into a boat one by one, and are taken on board ship.
There they thrive quite well if a pail of water is thrown over them
two or three times a day, and are generally in very good condition
when they reach this country.
It is said that if one of these turtles has once begun to lay her
eggs in the sand, nothing will induce her to pause in her task until
she has finished it, and that even if the eggs are taken away from
her as fast as she lays them, she will still go steadily on just as if she
were undisturbed.

Crocodiles and Alligators

 Of course you know what these huge creatures are like. They are
just enormous lizards, fifteen, or twenty, or even thirty feet long,
with very short legs, and very clumsy bodies, and very long tails.
And their great jaws are armed with rows of most terrible teeth.
But what is the difference between crocodiles and alligators?
Well, in some ways they are certainly very much alike; but you can
always tell them by the shape of their heads, for the muzzle of a
crocodile is always narrowed just behind the nostrils, while that of
an alligator is not. And in the crocodiles the fourth lower tooth fits
into a notch in the edge of the upper jaw, so that you can distinctly
see it even when the mouth is closed.
All these creatures live in the water, and spend a great deal of
their time lying motionless on the surface, when they look like
floating logs. One would think that they were fast asleep. But woe
betide any animal which comes to drink from the bank close by, for
one of the great reptiles instantly dives, swims swiftly along under
water, and knocks it into the stream by a blow from its mighty tail.
There is scarcely any animal which does not fall a victim at times
to these giant lizards. And as soon as the unfortunate creature is
knocked into the water it is dragged beneath the surface, and held
there until it is drowned. You would think that the reptiles
themselves would be drowned, wouldn't you, as they have to remain
submerged for many minutes with their jaws widely opened? But
they have a very curious valve at the back of the throat, and as soon
as the mouth is opened this closes so tightly that not even the tiniest
drop of water can find its way down the throat.
Both crocodiles and alligators swim with very great speed by
waving their powerful tails from side to side in the water. They can
run, too, with some little pace upon land. But it is very easy to avoid
them, for the bones of their necks are made in such a way that they
cannot turn their heads, and all that one has to do if pursued is to
spring suddenly to one side. But of course it is necessary to avoid
the stroke of the tail.
 The crocodiles always lay their eggs in the sand on the bank of a
river. The eggs are about as big as those of a goose, and are
generally buried at a depth of a couple of feet. The mother reptile
always sleeps on the top of the nest, and it is said that when the
little ones are ready to hatch out they utter a curious little cry. The
mother hears this, and scoops away the sand under which they are
buried, in order that they may have no difficulty in making their
escape.
Crocodiles are found in the warmer parts of Africa, Asia, America,
and Australia, and in some of the larger rivers are very plentiful. Just
now and then they venture down into the sea. Alligators, which also
are known as caymans and jacares, are only found in America and
place their eggs in holes dug in the mud or earth beside the water.
In the colder parts of the range they burrow under the mud of the
banks and spend the winter in sleep.

The Lizards
Lizards look at first glance like diminutive alligators, because
most of them have long-jawed heads, short legs wide apart, and
long tails; but really they are near relatives of the snakes, for not
only their internal structure but the coat of scales is snake-like; but
an important difference is that the jaws of the lizard are firmly
hinged to a solid skull, while the bones of the skull of the snake,
including those of the jaws, are connected by elastic cartilages which
enable them to spread apart and permit the swallowing of a
mouthful astonishingly large. But the lizards have no need of such a
convenience, for they subsist almost wholly on insects, or else are
vegetable-eaters. Lizards are almost entirely denizens of the tropics,
and seem to rejoice in the fiercest heat. They will lie contentedly in
the desert at noonday on rocks so hot that they would blister your
hand if you touched them. Therefore few are to be found in Europe
or North America, except in the extreme south.

The Blindworm
 Two or three small kinds are to be found in the south of England,
one of which is curious as representing a tribe, largely represented
in other parts of the world, of legless burrowing lizards, which look
much like little snakes, for none of them are more than ten or twelve
inches long, while they are of the thickness of a lead-pencil. They
look so shiny and serpent-like that many people are afraid of them.
But the blindworm, or slowworm, as this creature is called, is
perfectly harmless. It cannot bite you, for its teeth are far too tiny to
pierce the skin; and it cannot sting you, because it has no sting.
There is its odd little forked tongue, of course, which is always
darting in and out of its mouth, just like that of a snake. But this
tongue is only a feeler. Whenever a blindworm comes to an object it
does not quite understand, it touches it gently all over with the tip of
its tongue, just as we might touch it with the tips of our fingers.
Notwithstanding its name, the blindworm has a pair of very good,
though rather small, beady black eyes; and, of course, it is not a
worm.
During the daytime the blindworm mostly lies hidden under a
large stone; and on turning such a stone over, one may sometimes
find two or three of these lizards all coiled up together. But in the
evening they leave their hiding-places, and go out to search for the
tiny white slugs on which they feed.
When it is suddenly startled the blindworm sometimes behaves in
a very odd way. It stiffens its body, gives a kind of shudder and a
twist, and actually snaps off its own tail! Then the tail begins to
writhe about on the ground, wriggling and curling and even leaping
up into the air in the most curious manner; and while you are
watching its antics, the blindworm creeps away into some place of
safety. You would think that it must suffer a great deal of pain from
this extraordinary injury, wouldn't you, and that the blindworm
would feel it quite as much as a man would feel if his leg were cut
off? But it does not seem to suffer at all; and stranger still, a new
tail very soon begins to grow in the place of the old one, so that in
the course of a very few weeks the lizard is just as perfect as it was
before!
 Skinks
These are queer little lizards with four short legs and very stumpy
tails, which are found in many parts of Africa and Asia. They live in
sandy deserts, and are rather slow in their movements as a rule. But
if a fly should settle anywhere near them they will dart upon it with
the most surprising quickness, and will hardly ever fail to capture it.
And if they are alarmed they will burrow into the sand so rapidly that
they really seem to sink into it just as if it were water. In a very few
seconds, indeed, they will bury themselves to a depth of at least two
or three feet.
In olden days skinks were very much used in medicine, and the
powder obtained from their dried bodies was thought to be a certain
cure for many diseases! It does not seem a very nice idea, yet even
to this day skinks are used for the same purpose in Eastern
countries.
There are several different kinds of these curious lizards, of
which the common skink, found in Northern Africa, is the best
known. It is about three inches and a half in length, and is yellowish
brown in color, with a number of darker bands on the sides of the
body.

Geckos
Odder still are the geckos, which have their toes swollen out at
the tips into round sucker-like pads, by means of which they can
climb a wall or a pane of glass with the greatest ease, or even walk
about like flies on the ceiling. They are very fond of getting into
houses, generally remaining hidden in some dark corner during the
day, but coming out toward evening to search for insects, and
continually uttering their curious little cry of "geck-geck-geck-o."
People used to be very much afraid of geckos, some thinking that
they could squirt out poison from the pads of their toes which would
act like the sting of a nettle, and others declaring that their teeth
were so sharp and strong that they could pierce even a sheet of
steel! But the real fact is that these lizards are perfectly harmless,
and cannot injure any living creature except the insects upon which
they feed. When they take up their quarters in a house they soon
become extremely tame, and will even climb up on the dinner-table
to be fed.
Geckos are found in almost all hot countries of the Old World,
and nearly three hundred different kinds have been found altogether.

Iguanas
American lizards are almost wholly members of the numerous
iguana family, which takes its name from the big examples found
from Mexico down into Brazil. The commonly known one when fully
grown will measure four feet from the tip of its blunt, top-shaped
head to the end of its long tapering tail. It looks rather forbidding,
for a row of sharp spikes runs right along its back, while under its
chin is a great dewlap. Yet it is not quite so terrible as it seems, for
though it will bite fiercely if it is driven to bay, and use its long tail
like the lash of a whip, it will always run away if it can, and will
either climb into the topmost boughs of a tree, or plunge into a
stream and swim away.
This reptile is a very good swimmer, driving itself rapidly through
the water by waving its long tail from side to side, just like a
crocodile or an alligator. And it can dive beneath the surface and
remain at the bottom for a very long time without coming up to
breathe.
Iguanas live chiefly among the branches of trees which overhang
the water. Their flesh is very good to eat, for it is as tender as the
breast of a young chicken. Their eggs, too, which they bury in the
sand on the river-bank, are often used as food, and it is said that, no
matter how long they may be boiled, they never become hard.

Various American Lizards

The hot open plains which stretch from central Texas westward
to the Pacific Ocean, and northward in Utah and Nevada, abound in
a great variety of small lizards, none more than eighteen inches or
so in length. Some are fat and short-tailed, some slender and swift,
with tails like whiplashes. Some have gay colors and the power of
changing them more or less, while others are dull of hue and
uninteresting or repulsive to look at. Mostly they are insect-eaters,
but some subsist upon plants; and one of the latter is the big fat one
known in southern California as the "alderman."
Another strange one is the broad, flat creature so frequently seen
all over the Southwest, and called horned toad, on account of its
shape and habit of sitting on its squat legs, with its tail tucked
sideways out of sight. It is covered almost all over with long and
sharp spikes. Those on its head, which are directed backward, are
the longest; and from these it gets its name of horned toad. But
those on the back are very nearly as long, while there are several
rows upon the tail as well. Yet it is perfectly harmless, for even when
it is caught for the first time it never seems to use either its spikes or
its teeth.
But it has another peculiarity which it sometimes uses as a
means of defence, and that is a very strange one indeed. It actually
squirts out little jets of blood from its eyes! That seems impossible,
doesn't it? Yet there is no doubt at all about it, for when these
lizards have been kept in captivity, and have been rather roughly
handled, they have been known to squirt several drops of blood at a
time to a distance of twelve or fifteen inches! Yet nobody seems to
know how they do it.

The Gila Monster

This same region, however, contains a poisonous lizard—the only
kind of lizard in the world known to have sacs of venom in the
mouth. This venom enters any wound made by the animal's biting
with certain teeth, and acts upon the animal bitten like snake-
poison. This is a sluggish, round-headed, short-tailed creature which
dwells in the sandy plains along the Mexican boundary, and is called
the Gila monster, or, scientifically, the Heloderma. Its scales are
rounded, so that this lizard looks as if dressed in pebbled goatskin;
and its colors are black and yellow, in irregular blotches. The hunters
and sheep-herders are more afraid of it than need be, for it is sleepy
and will never use its poisonous teeth without great provocation, so
that it is only necessary to leave it alone in order to escape any
harm.

The Frilled Lizard

This lizard is a native of Australia, and has round its neck a kind
of frill, or ruff, from six to eight inches in diameter! As a rule this frill
is folded round the throat, so that from a little distance one would
scarcely notice it. But as soon as the reptile is excited or alarmed it
spreads it out, sits on its hinder legs and its tail, raises its head and
body, and shows its teeth, just as if it were going to fly at its enemy.
This is only pretence, however, for though the lizard grows to a
length of nearly three feet, it is quite harmless.
Another very curious habit which this lizard has is that of walking
upright on its hind legs, in the attitude of a dog when "begging." It
will even run in this position, and most odd it then looks. It is a
capital climber, and spends most of its life in the trees, to which it
always tries to escape when it thinks itself in danger. In color the
frilled lizard is yellowish brown mottled with black.

The Chameleon
Strangest of all strange lizards, however, is the chameleon. In the
first place, this lizard has a very long tongue, which it can dart out to
a really wonderful distance from its mouth. This tongue looks very
much like a worm, and is exceedingly sticky, so that all that a
chameleon has to do when it sees a fly settling near it is to dart out
its tongue and touch it with the tip. Then the fly adheres to it, and is
carried back into the mouth so quickly that it is almost impossible to
see what becomes of it. In this way it can catch a fly at a distance of
fully six inches.
Then the chameleon has most extraordinary eyes. They are
about as big as peas; but instead of having lids which move up and
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