A molecular dynamics simulation study has been performed for the microstructure evolution in a liquid metal Ni system during crystallization process at two cooling rates by adopting the embedded atom method （EAM） model potential. The bond-type index method of Honeycutt-Andersen （HA） and a new cluster-type index method （CTIM-2） have been used to detect and analyse the microstructures in this system. It is demonstrated that the cooling rate plays a critical role in the microstructure evolution： below the crystallization temperature Tc, the effects of cooling rate are very remarkable and can be fully displayed. At different cooling rates of 2.0 × 10^13 K·s^-1 and 1.0 × 10^12 K·s^-1, two different kinds of crystal structures are obtained in the system. The first one is the coexistence of the hcp （expressed by （12 0 0 0 6 6） in CTIM-2） and the fcc （12 0 0 0 12 0） basic clusters consisting of 1421 and 1422 bond-types, and the hcp basic cluster becomes the dominant one with decreasing temperature, the second one is mainly the fcc （12 0 0 0 12 0） basic clusters consisting of 1421 bond-type, and their crystallization temperatures Tc would be 1073 and 1173 K, respectively.
Nanosized Ni particles with an average diameter of about 8 nm were prepared by reducing of NiCl 2 with sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) in aqueous solution. By moderate annealing in protective atmosphere, the composite grew up to be 15-20 nm particles. Both of the as-prepared and annealed Ni particles were coated by a layer of manganese oxide via decomposition reaction in aqueous KMnO4 solution. Hysteresis loops of as-prepared samples show a large increase in the magnetization with decreasing temperature and an unsaturated component at high magnetic field. In contrast, the ferromagnetic characteristics of annealed one are much stronger with large magnetization and coercivity. The thermomagnetic curves verified the coexistence of ferromagnetic Ni and antiferromangetic Mn oxide phases. But there exists no exchange bias behavior in the samples, even though the interface structure between the ferromagnetic Ni core and the antiferromagnetic manganese oxides has been distinctly formed. The absence of exchange bias probably originates from the weak ferromagnetic characteristic of Ni cores.
