Magnetic behavior of nanocrystalline nickel ferrite: Part I. The effect of surface roughness

In the previous papers [R.D.K. Misra, A. Kale, R.S. Srivatsava, O. Senkov, Mater. Sci. Technol. 19 (2003) 826; R.D.K. Misra, A. Kale, B. Hooi, J.Th. DeHosson, Mater. Sci. Technol. 19 (2003) 1617; A. Kale, S. Gubbala, R.D.K. Misra, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 277 (2004) 350; S. Gubbala, H. Nathani, K. Koizol, R.D.K. Misra, Phys. B 348 (2004) 317; R.D.K. Misra, S. Gubbala, A. Kale, W.F. Egelhoff, Mater. Sci. Eng. B. 111 (2004) 164], we reported the synthesis, structural characterization and magnetic behavior of nanocrystalline ferrites of inverse and mixed spinel structure made by reverse micelle technique that enabled a narrow particle size distribution to be obtained. In the present paper, the reverse micelle approach has been extended to synthesize nanocrystalline ferrites with varying surface roughness of 8–18 Å (the surface roughness was measured by atomic force microscopy) and the magnetic behavior studied by SQUID magnetometer. Two different kinds of measurement were performed: (a) zero-field cooling (ZFC) and field cooling (FC) magnetization versus temperature measurements and (b) magnetization as a function of applied field. The analysis of magnetic measurement suggests significant influence of surface roughness of particles on the magnetic behavior. While the superparamagnetic behavior is retained by the nanocrystalline ferrites of different surface roughness at 300 K, the hysteresis loop at 2 K becomes non-squared and the coercivity increases with increase in surface roughness. This behavior is discussed in terms of broken bonds and degree of surface spin disorder.