AC Electrodeposition of Amorphous CoP Nanowires Embedded in an Alumina Template

Abstract

Laboratory of Thin Film Technologies, School of Natural Science, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, RussiaIn this paper we report on the fabrication of amorphous CoP alloy nanowires by means of alter-nating current (ac) electrodeposition in an highly ordered anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template.An ac voltage with sinusoidal waveform at a fixed frequency of 400 Hz was applied to elec-trodeposit nanowires from aqueous solutions with different phosphorous content at room temper-ature. Current transients demonstrate the general four-stage nucleation and growth behavior ofnanowires in nanoporous templates and scanning electron microscopy confirms the formation ofCoP nanowires in AAO. Results show that electrolyte phosphorous content influences the growth,microstructure and magnetic properties of the nanowires. An increase of phosphorus contentreduces the growth rate of nanowires. The crystalline structure of cobalt nanowires electrodepositedin AAO changes significantly to amorphous by the incorporation of phosphorous as an alloyingelement in the structure, as X-ray diffraction patterns show. Furthermore, the coercivity of the CoPnanowires decreases when the electrolyte phosphorous content increases.