Preparation of Thin Films of Oriented Iron Nanocrystals

Abstract
Granular thin films of oriented α-Fe nanoparticles have been synthesized. The oriented α-Fe nanoparticles were prepared by taking advantage of the epitaxial growth of α-Fe on oriented Au “seed” nanoparticles, which were epitaxially grown on a (100)NaCl substrate. The crystallographic orientation between α-Fe and Au nanocrystals is [100]Au//[100]Fe with (010)Au//(011)Fe. It is shown that this method can be applied to control the size, distance and crystalline orientation of Fe nanocrystals in granular films.