Deposition of magnetic particles: a computer simulation study

We report a Monte Carlo simulation of deposition of magnetic particles on a one-dimensional substrate. Incoming particles interact with those that are already part of the deposit via a dipole–dipole potential. The strength of the dipolar interaction is controlled by an effective temperature T*, the case of pure diffusion-limited deposition being recovered in the limit T* → ∞. Preliminary results suggest that the fractal dimension of the deposits does not change with temperature but that there is a (temperature-dependent) crossover from regimes of temperature-dependent to universal behaviour. Furthermore, it was found that dipoles tend to align with the local direction of growth.