Nanowire design by magnetic collection of Fe, Ni and/or FeNi-alloy nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method using synchronized high power hollow cathode sputtering with dual targets to rapidly produce customizable nanoparticles with varying Fe, Ni, and FeNi-alloy compositions for advanced applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new technique combining dual hollow cathodes and synchronized pulsing for precise control over nanoparticle elemental composition.

Findings

Controlled composition of nanoparticles from pure Fe, Ni to FeNi alloys.

Rapid prototyping capability for customized nanoparticles.

Potential for diverse applications in nanotechnology.

Abstract

A method for growing nanoparticles with different elemental compositions simply by changing pulsing parameters in a power supply is demonstrated. The technique is based on high power pulsed hollow cathode sputtering, and the difference in particle composition ranges from pure Fe and Ni, to fully alloyed FeNi particles. Several pulses, or bursts, from a hollow cathode are needed in order to grow a nanoparticle using high power pulses. With this in mind, we devised a setup with two hollow cathodes of different material, Fe and Ni, situated in the vicinity of each other. By using two power supplies and a synchronization unit, the number and size of pulses of each element into the growth regime of the nanoparticles is controlled, and a tunable mixture of ions of the two elements is ensured. We here show that the two-target high power hollow cathode sputtering unit can be a powerful tool for rapid prototyping of more advanced, customized, nanoparticles, which can be of great importance for numerous applications.