Magnetostatic interaction in electrodeposited Ni/Au multilayer nanowire arrays**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11204246) and the Natural Science Foundation of CQCSTC (Grant No. cstc2014jcyjA50027).

Abstract

Ordered Ni/Au multilayer nanowire arrays are successfully fabricated inside the nanochannels of anodic aluminum oxide template by pulse electrodeposition method. The thickness of the alternating layers is controlled to examine the magnetostatic interaction in Ni/Au multilayer nanowires. The magnetic easy axis parallel to the nanowires indicates that here the magnetostatic coupling along the wire axis dominates over the interactions perpendicular to the nanowires. However, the magnetostatic interaction between adjacent nanowires with larger magnetic layers is enhanced, leading to the existence of an optimum coercivity value.