A Preliminary Study on the Synthesis and Characterization of Multilayered Ag/Co Magnetic Nanowires Fabricated via the Electrodeposition Method

A single-bath electrodeposition method was developed to integrate multilayer Ag/Co nanowires with a commercial anodic alumina oxide (AAO) template with a pore diameter of 100–200 nm. An electrolyte system containing silver nitride and cobalt sulfide was studied using cyclic voltammetry, and the electrodeposition rate was varied to optimize the electrodeposition conditions. A constant stepwise potential and a variable cation ratio of [Co(2+)]/[Ag(+)] were used during electrodeposition. After the dissolution of the template in aqueous NaOH solution, multilayered Ag/Co nanowires were obtained with a composition of [Co]/[Ag(80)Co(20)], as identified by XRD and TEM, when [Co(2+)]/[Ag(+)] = 150. By annealing at 200°C for 1 h, uniformly structured (Co(99.57)/Ag(100)) nanowires were obtained. Compared with pure Co nanowires, the magnetic hysteresis loops showed a greater magnetic anisotropy for (Co(99.57)/Ag(100)) nanowires than for pure Co nanowires, corresponding to a change in the easy axis upon magnetization.