Synthesis of monolayered Ni-Fe alloy nanoparticles based on nanotemplate approach

A monolayer of Ni-Fe alloy nanoparticles was fabricated on a polyimide (PI) film via depositing a 1 nm thick Fe thin film on top of a preexisting nano-sized Ni particle template, followed by thermal annealing to induce coalescence of the Fe film onto the preexisting Ni seed particles. The resulting alloy nanoparticles were 6.5 nm in size and exhibited an increase in saturation magnetization due to the incorporation of Fe compared to the initial Ni seed particles. The nanoparticle template process presented here can be easily extended to other alloy systems to potentially alter the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles as needed