Preparation and characterization of electrodeposited Fe and Fe/Cu nanowires

Fe and Fe/Cu multilayered nanowires with layer thicknesses in the 10nm rang e were successfully synthesized within the voids of nanoporous polycarbonat e membranes and characterized by transmission electron microscopy. Magnetiz ation measurements show that the shape anisotropy of individual Fe wires do minates the magnetic properties. Fe(8nm)/Cu(10nm) multilayered nanowires sh ow CPP-GMR ratios as large as 12% at low temperature. The variations of the CPP-GMR as a function of the Cu layer thickness are consistent with the Va let-Fert model. Our data yield a value of about 0.3 for the bulk spin asymm etry coefficient beta.