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1. Introduction
Nickel is a metallic magnetic material that has found wide application in the form of thin films. It can be used in solar thermal energy conversion [1], ferrofluid technology, magnetic resonance imaging [2-4], high density recording media [5], electrochemistry, nanotechnology, microelectronic devices, solar energetic [6], etc. Nickel nanowires have application in sensors [7,8] as well as catalyst for the growth of carbon nanotubes [9]. Also, nickel has been widely used as a deposit material for fabrication of multilayer monochromators for neutron optics [10]. Desired morphology of nickel thin films can be achieved by selecting an appropriate substrate and the deposition technique [11-13].
Glancing Angle Deposition (GLAD) is a physical vapour deposition technique for obtaining columnar nanostructures. This technique is based on an accurate moving of the substrate during the deposition as illustrated in Fig. 1. In this method, the substrate can be rotated around two axes. Rotation around one axis is changing the angle of the incident vapour flux (tilt angle) while the rotating about the other one control the structure of the deposited film (azimuthal angle) [15]. If the tilt angle is kept fixed during the deposition, the structure of the deposited thin film consists of nanocolumns inclined towards the direction of the incident vapour flux. When uniform azimuthal rotation is applied to the substrate, the resulting nanostructures are composed of vertical columns normal to the substrate surface [16].
The aim of this study was to demonstrate the utility of the GLAD growth technique for fabricating thin films composed...