Nanostructure and chemical characterisation of individual NiFe/Pt multilayer nanowires.

NiFe/Pt multilayer nanowires have been successfully fabricated by pulse electrodeposition into the channels of porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates, and characterized at the nanoscale. Individual nanowires have uniform structure and regular periodicity. The NiFe and Pt layers are polycrystalline, with random orientation fcc lattice structure crystallites and grain sizes 3-10 nm, and the average layer growth rate is 30 nm/s for NiFe and 4 nm/s for Pt. Nanoscale chemical analysis of individual NiFe/Pt nanowires by EDX and EELS shows that they contain alternating NiFe and Pt layers, with a small approximately 1% inclusion of Pt in the NiFe layer due to electrochemical co-deposition.