Electrochemical Synthesis of Magnetostrictive Fe-Ga/Cu Multilayered Nanowire Arrays with Tailored Magnetic Response

Arrays of nanowires are fabricated with alternating segments of the magnetostrictive alloy Fe1xGax and Cu using electrochemical deposition in nanoporous anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) templates. The difficult nature of Ga-alloy electrochemistry is overcome by controlling mass-transfer and hydrodynamic conditions using novel rotating disk electrode templates to obtain highly uniform segment lengths throughout the arrays. Extensive structural characterization by XRD, EBSD and TEM reveals a strong < 110 > textured Fe1xGax growth. Furthermore, using vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), we demonstrate that control of magnetization reversal processes is possible once uniform aspect ratios are obtained for both the FeGa and Cu segments.