Ricerc@Sapienza

Cobalt-based nanoparticles directly synthesized on conductive substrates through electrodeposition find application in a broad range of scientific and technological fields.The capability to characterize both morphological parameters (e.g., shape, size, structure, and numerical density per unit of area) and magnetic properties (e.g., magnetic moment, saturation magnetization, or coercivity) directly on the substrate on which they are grown is fundamental for many of those applications.

Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) refers to a family of scanning probe techniques
based on atomic force microscopy (AFM), which allow one to image the magnetic
properties of the sample surface at the nanoscale, simultaneously to its topography.
Here, we review the most widespread MFM techniques, mainly dynamic MFM
although static MFM is also briefly described for the sake of completeness. We
illustrate the working principles, the experimental setups, and the analytical models

The development of high spatial resolution and element sensitive magnetic characterization techniques
to quantitatively measure magnetic parameters of individual nanoparticles (NPs) and deeply understand
and tune their magnetic properties is a hot topic in nanomagnetism. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM),
thanks to its high lateral resolution, appears as a promising technique for the magnetic characterization of
single nano-sized materials although it is still limited by some drawbacks, especially by the presence of