Fabrication and characterization of Co1-xFex nanowires

Co1-xFex alloy nanowires with 40 nm diam and  were fabricated by electrodeposition in nanopores of alumina templates. The crystalline structure of the nanowires is concentration dependent and shows a transition from the cobalt hexagonal-closed-packed structure (hcp) to a face-centered-cubic structure (fcc) in the concentration range  For an iron content greater than 15 at % the structure becomes body-centered-cubic (bcc). The nanowires with an aspect ratio of about 8 show a highly anisotropic magnetization with the easy axis along the length of the wire. The squareness of the hysteresis loops is between 72% and 93% for magnetic fields parallel to the wires while the squareness is less than 13% for fields perpendicular to the wires. The coercivity along the easy axis reaches a maximum of 2150 Oe for  and is almost concentration independent.