Equiatomic CoPt nanowires with a gold cap layer have been fabricated by electrochemical template synthesis. Au improves the structural and magnetic properties of the L1 0 ordered CoPt, leading to coercivities of up to 1.43 T. The anisotropy constant K 1 was estimated as 3.9͑9͒ MJ m −3 from the approach to saturation, and four effective anisotropy constants were determined from analysis of torque curves in a 14 T field. Multisegmented magnetic nanowires are produced using gold interlayers. © 2011 American Institute of Physics. ͓doi:10.1063/1.3601748͔ Binary Co-Pt alloys with an L1 0 structure have been widely investigated for high density magnetic recording media, microelectromechanical systems, giant magnetoresistance sensors, and bio-sensors. When their composition is close to equiatomic, CoPt alloys undergo a phase transformation from a disordered face-centered cubic ͑fcc͒ structure to the ordered face-centered tetragonal ͑fct͒, L1 0 structure on annealing below 825°C. 1 Magnetocrystalline anisotropy is then Ϸ5 MJ m −3 . Permanent magnets with a large coercivity and a high magnetization ͑810 kA m −1 ͒ can be produced. 2,3 Electrodeposition of Co-Pt films is a simple alternative to sputter deposition. Electrochemical template synthesis in anodisc aluminum oxide membranes also enables the fabrication of CoPt nanowires with controllable dimensions. 4 A postdeposition annealing process is required to obtain the L1 0 ordered phase. Rhen et al. 5 achieved a coercivity of 1.30 T for CoPt nanowires while Liu et al. 6 obtained coercive fields of 1.35 T and 0.45 T parallel and perpendicular to the wire axis, respectively. Their method involved fabricating Co/Pt multilayered nanowires and subsequent annealing which produced a mixture of fcc and fct phases due to incomplete mixing of the Co and Pt segments.Previous work has shown that the addition of a third, nonmagnetic element, such as Sn, Pb, Sb, Bi, Cu, Ag, and Au can reduce the annealing temperature required to obtain wellordered L1 0 CoPt films. 7-9 Gold combines unique optical, electrical, and chemical properties with biocompatibility. 10,11 The effect of an Au spacer layer on the magnetic properties of CoPt films prepared by sputtering has been examined. [12][13][14] The diffusion of Au into CoPt improves the phase transformation from disordered fcc to ordered fct. Yuan et al. 14 achieved a coercive field of 1.20 T in CoPt/Au thin films. Min et al. 15 showed an enhancement in coercivity and improved squareness in the hysteresis curves of Au doped CoPt nanowires, and they found that CoPt nanowires with larger diameter wires ͑200 nm͒ formed a tetragonal phase but 50 nm diameter formed a cubic phase with reduced coercivity contrary to the results of Shamaila et al. 16 Here, equiatomic CoPt nanowires have been fabricated by electrochemical template synthesis. An Au cap layer was then deposited above CoPt wires using a dual bath technique. Postdeposition annealing produces L1 0 CoPt/Au nanowires. Structural and magnetic properties of these wires are presented and a ...