Direct electrodeposition of highly ordered magnetic nickel nanowires on silicon wafer

Highly ordered nickel nanowire (50 and 12 nm in diameter) arrays were successfully deposited into the nanoporous alumina template film on a gold-coated silicon wafer. The electrodeposited nickel nanowires have a preferred (220) fibre texture, that is the [110] direction parallel to the wire axis. With electropolishing, nanoporous alumina template with ordered and uniform pores was prepared by anodisation. By complete removal of the barrier layer and careful control of electrodeposition procedures, nearly 100% pore filling of uniform nanowires can be directly deposited onto the Au-coated silicon substrate, therefore no pattern transfer is necessary and incorporation of these nanowires into silicon-based devices is readily possible