Magnetic Nanomaterials: Chemical Design, Synthesis, and Potential Applications

5 years ago

Magnetic Nanomaterials: Chemical Design, Synthesis, and Potential Applications

Junjie Xu, Yanglong Hou, Ziyu Yang, Yanmin Ju, Song Gao, Kai Zhu

Magnetic nanomaterials (MNMs) have attracted significant interest in the past few decades because of their unique properties such as superparamagnetism, which results from the influence of thermal energy on a ferromagnetic nanoparticle. In the superparamagnetic size regime, the moments of nanoparticles fluctuate as a result of thermal energy. To understand the fundamental behavior of superparamagnetism and develop relevant potential applications, various preparation routes have been explored to produce MNMs with desired properties and structures. However, some challenges remain for the preparation of well-defined magnetic nanostructures, including exchange-coupled nanomagnets, which are considered as the next generation of advanced magnets. In such a case, effective synthetic methods are required to achieve control over the chemical composition, size, and structure of MNMs. For instance, liquid-phase chemical syntheses, a set of emerging approaches to prepare various magnetic nanostructures, facilitate precise control over the nucleation and specific growth processes of nanomaterials with diverse structures. Among them, the high-temperature organic-phase method is an indispensable one in which the microstructures and physical/chemical properties of MNMs can be tuned by controlling the reaction conditions such as precursor, surfactant, or solvent amounts, reaction temperature or time, reaction atmosphere, etc.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.accounts.7b00407

DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.7b00407