The influence of crystallinity enhancement on the magnetic properties of ac electrodeposited Fe nanowires

Fe nanowire arrays with different degrees of crystallinity were fabricated by ac electrodeposition into anodic aluminium oxide templates. A (110) preferential crystal orientation was observed for all the samples. An extensive investigation of X-ray patterns revealed that the variation of the magnetic properties is a direct consequence of the crystallinity degree of Fe nanowires. The results indicate that the degree of crystallinity varies with electrolyte acidity, waveform and frequency of the ac electrodeposition voltage. Regardless of the waveform and electrolyte acidity, higher deposition frequency induces higher coercivity. The effect of waveform and pH value on the magnetic properties is seen to be more pronounced in the low deposition frequency. Improving the ac electrodeposition conditions increased the coercivity and squareness from almost 1010 Oe and 0.49 to 1810 Oe and 0.99, respectively. It was seen that annealing improved the crystallinity, thereby increasing the coercivity and squareness.