Preparation of hexagonal iron flakes with a hexagonal structure on the sublayer of copper oxides

This study presented a novel method to prepare hexagonal iron flakes with hexagonal close-packed structures (hcp) on the copper oxide sublayers. Also, it demonstrated that the size and structure of iron grains are functions of sublayer features. The sublayer was prepared by sputtering copper on the glass substrate and annealing it. As the annealing temperature of the copper sublayer increased, the oxygen percentage increased and copper oxide rods were formed. Hexagonal iron flakes were formed after sputtering iron on this sublayer. The XRD analysis showed that these hexagonal flakes have a close-packed hexagonal structure. This finding was further confirmed by the magnetic properties of the samples and by density functional theory (DFT) calculations.