Fabrication of Ordered Ferromagnetic−Nonmagnetic Alloy Nanowire Arrays and their Magnetic Property Dependence on Annealing Temperature

Ordered ferromagnetic−nonmagnetic alloy (Co−Cu, Co−Ag and Fe−Ag) nanowire arrays embedded in the nanochannels of anodic aluminum membranes (AAM) have been fabricated by electrodeposition. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy observations reveal that these alloy nanowires are uniform in diameter and ordered. Magnetic measurements show that the perpendicular coercivity ( H C ⊥ ) of these ordered nanowire arrays increases dramatically, reaches their maximum, and then decreases sharply during the annealing process. However, there is not much change of the parallel coercivity ( H C ∥ ) for these alloy nanowire arrays in the same annealing conditions. This phenomenon should be contributed to the special structure of the nanowires/AAM.