1 research outputs found
Morpho-Structural and Magnetic Properties of CoFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>/SiO<sub>2</sub> Nanocomposites: The Effect of the Molecular Coating
The
use of magnetic nanoarchitecture in several applications is
often limited by the lack of noninteracting particles, due to the
frequent presence of clusters and aggregates of particles. Here, we
report an investigation of the interparticle interactions by changing
the molecular coating on ∼5 nm CoFe2O4 nanoparticles embedded in a silica structure. The magnetic investigation
at a low temperature allows revealing the key role of organic ligands
in tuning the morpho-structural properties of hybrid materials. Cobalt
ferrite-coated nanoparticles were prepared by the polyol method using
triethylene glycol as a co-reagent (CFOT) and by the exchange
ligand process using dihydroxyhydrocinnamic acid (CFOH).
Then, magnetic mesoporous silica nanocomposites have been prepared
starting from CFOT (CFOTS) and CFOH (CFOHS). For the CFOTS sample, the interparticle
distance did not change after coating, whereas the CFOHS sample showed an increase in the interparticle distance by 23%.
This value has been obtained by investigating interparticle interactions
by remanence techniques, which represent a good approach to determine
the approximated values of interparticle distances in complex systems.
The measurements showed that the silica coating produces a reduction
of 47% in the dipolar interaction strength for the CFOHS sample, whereas no significant change was observed for the CFOTS sample. The differences in magnetic response upon varying
the molecular coating of nanoparticles are due to the different interactions
of the molecular ligands with silica, resulting in a change of interparticle
distances and then magnetic interactions