Synthesis and Properties of Cobalt Nanowires

Understanding the structure and properties of metal nanowires is critical for the atomic-scale manipulation, design and application of those materials. Currently, active research on structure and behavior of various metallic nanowires has been carried out by computer simulation. Much experimental work has been done for synthesizing various metal nanowires by many different methods. To experimentally explore the mechanism of the behavior of and the development of structures in the nanowires, it is desirable to have the capability of synthesis various metal nanowires with controlled size, length, uniformity and aspect ratio. It is also desirable to further process those metal nanowires to engineer their properties. In our study, a template assisted fabrication method has been employed to fabricate various metal nanowire arrays, including cobalt, iron and nickel. This fabrication method offers us command over the size and length of the nanowires with excellent uniformity. Heat treatments were used to further process the metal nanowires. The structure of cobalt nanowire array has been investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Mechanical properties of the metal nanowire array will be investigated through nanoindentation and atomic force microscopy (AFM).