Nickel nanorods (NRs) capped with gold (Au/Ni) were grown into porous anodic aluminum oxide templates and subsequently transferred onto Au/Si (100) substrates. A high dense 2D array of Ni and Au/Ni nanorods was analyzed by vibrating sample magnetometry; it was found that an increase in 14.8% of the magnetic moment following the deposition of Au caps. In order to further investigate this phenomenon, the magnetic distribution of Au/Ni nanorods was studied by off-axis electron holography. The magnetization and induction strengths were evaluated to be 4.7 × 105 A/m and 0.62 T, respectively, which is equivalent to magnetometry measurements of the Ni NR arrays. Remarkably, a vortex state configuration was imaged in the Au segment by the retrieved magnetic phase of the electron holograms under free lens conditions of the transmission electron microscope column. It was concluded that the magnetic distribution in the Au segment is associated with a ferromagnetic coupling with Ni and correlated with the magnetometry measurements.

This work reports on the correlation between resistive switching (RS) with capacitance switching (CS) states observed in SiO₂/Si-nanocrystals (Si-NCs)/SiO₂ stack layers using a metal-insulating semiconductor (MIS)-like device. The formation of Si-NCs, which act as conductive nodes, of about 6.7 nm in size was confirmed using a transmission electron microscope. These devices exhibit bipolar RS properties with an intermediate resistive state (IRS), which is a self-compliance behavior related to the presence of the Si-NCs layer. The current value changes from 40 nA to 550 µA, indicating RS from a high resistance state (HRS) to a low resistance state (LRS) with the IRS at 100 µA. The accumulation (C_A) and inversion capacitance (C_I) also change when these RS events occur. The C_A switches from 2.52 nF to 3 nF with an intermediate CS of 2.7 nF for the HRS, LRS, and IRS, respectively. The C_I also switches from 0.23 nF to 0.6 nF for the HRS and LRS, respectively. These devices show an ON/OFF current ratio of 10⁴ with retention times of 10⁴ s. Furthermore, both C_A and C_I states remained stable for more than 10³ s. These findings highlight the potential of these devices for applications in information storage through memristor and memcapacitor technologies.