Synthesis of nickel-zinc ferrite nanoparticles in polyol: morphological, structural and magnetic studies

Nickel–zinc ferrite monodisperse nanoparticles are synthesized by forced hydrolysis in diethylenglycol. FC and ZFC susceptibility curves suggest that they present superparmagnetic behaviour with a blocking temperature between 63 and 15 K depending on the zinc content. The saturation magnetization of the nanocrystals at 5 K is very close to that of bulk materials, and very high compared to that of similar particles prepared by other chemical routes. High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy and In‐field Mössbauer studies show clearly that these relatively high values are mainly due to: (i) the high crystalline quality of the particles and (ii) a cation distribution different from the classical distribution encountered in the bulk material. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)