Magnetic Quartz Crystal Microbalance: Alternating Ferromagnetic/Diamagnetic Multilayers

Abstract

A new technique for using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) in magnetic field is described. This technique takes advantage of the sensitive nature of QCM to load changes. The idea is to perturb the oscillations of a QCM with deposited magnetic materials by applying magnetic field. A new instrument called magnetic QCM (MQCM) has been constructed to explore this technique. Past MQCM investigations have shown that QCM frequency and phase responds to magnetic nano-dispersions in elastic non-magnetic matrix and also to alternating layers of ferromagnetic and diamagnetic materials. We have found that this type of alternating multilayer structure on QCM is very sensitive to weak magnetic fields.