Preparation and characterization of magnetic polymeric thin films

The revolution in information technology has led the scientists to look for advanced materials to cater for the growing capacity of data storage. Over the recent years, significant advances have been made in the development of materials, which possess smart and intelligent functions of the magnetic data storage and handling. These magnetic materials exhibit ferroelectric, ferrielectric and anti-ferroelectric properties. There have been successful attempts to prepare semiconducting conjugated polymers as potential materials, which has potential of being used as a base material. The magnetic properties of polyaniline are achieved by suitably doping the base material. We have developed a unique and novel method for preparation of polyaniline magnetic thin films by vapor deposition of magnetic polyaniline powder on various substrates. The characterization of thin films by optical absorption, SEM, X-ray are reported here. These studies suggest that vacuum deposited magnetic polyaniline thin films are suitable for magnetic data storage device fabrication. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.