Fabrication, structural and magnetic properties of one-dimensional anti-ferromagnetic FeMn nanostructures

Abstract

FeMn nanowires have been synthesized by employing DC electro-deposition technique provided with constant stirring during the growth. The use of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates made it possible to get well aligned nanowires with average diameter around 100 nm. Magnetic field annealing with field strength of 1 T applied at angle 0° and 90° to nanowires axis at different annealing temperatures has been employed to study the variation in structural and magnetic properties of nanowires. XRD analysis shows poor crystallinity of as-synthesized arrays but cubic structure with (110) preferred orientation has been resulted after the annealing process. Furthermore, vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) has been employed to study the saturation magnetization (Ms), squareness ratio (SQ=Mr/Ms) and coercivity (Hc) of the as-synthesized and annealed samples. The as deposited and annealed NWs arrays show the coherent rotation for magnetization reversal process.