Electrochemical Deposition of Nanowires in Porous Alumina

Electrochemical deposition is a very efficient method for producing many types of modern materials. The method is not expensive and does not have a limit for sample size. In our work the preparation of Ni, Co and Fe nanowires is presented. The obtained nanowires had different diameter and length which were tunable by template porous material and time of deposition, respectively. The quality of the prepared wires was dependent also on deposition mode. The smallest wires of the diameter around 40 nm were prepared in porous anodic alumina oxide obtained from oxalic acid. The largest ones, around 120 nm, were produced in phosphoric acid. The length could be as large as the thickness of the oxide and reached up to about 1 μm. The morphology of wires was studied by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The magnetic characterization was done with usage of magnetic force microscopy and the Mössbauer spectroscopy. The wires show magnetization along their growth direction.