Inter-particle and interfacial interaction of magnetic nanoparticles

Abstract

In order to understand inter-particle as well as interfacial interaction of magnetic nanoparticles, we have prepared several Fe3O4 nanoparticles in the ranges from 3 to 50 nm. These nanoparticles are particularly well characterized in terms of size distribution with a standard deviation (sigma) in size less than 0.4 nm. We investigated the inter-particle interaction by measuring the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles while controlling inter-particle distances by diluting the samples with solvents. According to this study, blocking temperatures dropped by 8-17 K with increasing the inter-particle distances from a few nm to 140 nm while the overall shape and qualitative behavior of the magnetization remain unchanged. It implies that most features observed in the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles are due to the intrinsic properties of the nanoparticles, not due to the inter-particle interaction. We then examined possible interfacial magnetic interaction in the core-shell structure of our Fe3O4 nanoparticles. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.