Facile synthesis of snowflake-like magnetic Fe-Ni alloy with high magnetic properties

Snowflake-like Fe-Ni alloy has been synthesised via a facile hydrothermal approach without any soft and hard template. The structure of the snowflake-like Fe-Ni alloy was characterised by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The dendrite trunk lengths of the snowflake-like Fe-Ni alloy were about 2·5-7·0 mm, and those of the branch trunk ranged from 250·0 to 650·0 nm. Furthermore, it was found that the formation and morphology of Fe-Ni alloy strongly depended on the reaction time. Moreover, the magnetic and electrical properties of Fe-Ni alloy with various morphologies were compared. Moreover, the result showed that the snowflake-like Fe-Ni alloy indicated enhancement of their ferromagnetic and electrical properties, which was attributed to their anisotropic shape.