Magnetic field-induced solvothermal synthesis of one-dimensional assemblies of Ni-Co alloy microstructures

One-dimensional magnetic Ni-Co alloy microwires with different microstructures and differently shaped building blocks including spherical particles, multilayer stacked alloy plates, and alloy flowers, have been synthesized by an external magnetic field-assisted solvothermal reaction of mixtures of cobalt(II) chloride and nickel(II) chloride in 1, 2-propanediol with different NaOH concentrations. By adjusting the experimental parameters, such as precursor concentration and Ni/Co ratio, Ni-Co alloy chains with uniform diameters in the range 500 nm to 1.3 μm and lengths ranging from several micrometers to hundreds of micrometers can be obtained. A mechanism of formation of the one-dimensional assemblies of magnetic Ni-Co microparticles in a weak external magnetic field is proposed.