First order reversal curve investigation of the hard and soft magnetic phases of annealed CoFeCu nanowire arrays

(CoFe)1−xCux (x=0.12–0.84) nanowire arrays were ac-pulse electrodeposited into anodic aluminum oxide templates. The electrodeposition was performed in a constant electrolyte while Cu content was controlled by off-time between pulses. Nanowires with 30 nm diameter and the certain lengths with the both bcc-CoFe and fcc-Cu phases were obtained. Magnetization and coercivity of the nanowires decreased with increasing the Cu content. Annealing improved the coercivity and a remarkable increase in magnetization of nanowires with high Cu contents was observed. A two-phase treatment was seen for annealed samples with high Cu contents. First order reversal curves showed a hard magnetic phase with almost constant magnetic properties and coercivity of ~2500 Oe. The results showed that main source of the various magnetic behaviors of the samples may be attributed to increase in soft magnetic phase. A single domain treatment with a narrow interacting field and coercive field distributions was also observed for the annealed samples with high Cu content.