  Self-organization of magnetic materials is an emerging and active field. An
overview of the use of self-organization for magnetic purposes is given, with a
view to illustrate aspects that cannot be covered by lithography. A first set
of issues concerns the quantitative study of low-dimensional magnetic phenomena
(1D and 0D). Such effects also occur in microstructured and
lithographically-patterned materials but cannot be studied in these because of
the complexity of such materials. This includes magnetic ordering, magnetic
anisotropy and superparamagnetism. A second set of issues concerns the
possibility to directly use self-organization in devices. Two sets of examples
are given: first, how superparamagnetism can be fought by fabricating thick
self-organized structures, and second, what new or improved functionalities can
be expected from self-organized magnetic systems, like the tailoring of
magnetic anisotropy or controlled dispersion of properties.
