Electrodeposition efficiency of Co and Cu in the fabrication of multilayer nanowires by polymeric track-etched templates.

Co/Cu-multilayer nanowires can be exploited to develop magnetoresistive sensors. One of the easiest methods for their production is filling nanoporous templates by pulsed-electrodeposition (PED) from a single bath. Multiple parameters effecting the growth of these nano-objects must be controlled to tailor their properties. In this study, the deposition efficiency of Co/Cu-multilayer nanowires produced in nanoporous-polymeric membranes is assessed, and the influence of the space confinement produced by the nanopores themselves on the continuous and pulsed-electrodeposition is evaluated. The growth dependence on some of the most significant process parameters has been investigated. It is shown here that, for each species, when depositing Co and Cu separately, a decrease of current efficiency is observed when the charge density is increased and the pore diameter is reduced; on the contrary, in the Co/Cu-PED, changing the degree of polarization for each deposition step of the different metals results in a sensible reduction of this effect.