Synthesis of NiCu Alloy Nanoparticles by Arc Plasma Evaporation

The NiCu nanoparticles were synthesized from NixCu1-x (20 at. % < x < 80 at. %) bulk alloys with arc plasma technique. The experimental results indicated that the crystal structure of the powders is face centered cubic structure, the same as the bulk raw materials. The composition between the prepared powders and the bulk alloys altered with the content of the nickel and copper. With Scherrer equation, the average crystallite size was determined to be 50 nm, which is consistent with the results achieved from the TEM (transmission electron microscopy) images. Also the TEM images showed that some of the nanoparticles could aggregate and grew into micro-size particles at room temperature. The largest size of the grown particle at room temperature was about 1 μm.