Structural and magnetic characterization of CuCo granular alloys

We have studied the structural and magnetic properties of grains of cobalt embedded in a copper matrix using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and macroscopic magnetization measurements for different thermal treatments of samples containing 10 at% Co. We show that the local structure around Co atoms keeps an FCC packing, independently of the annealing conditions of the samples. All results are coherent with the growing of the small particles with increasing annealing.