Durable oxygen evolution reaction of one dimensional spinel CoFe2O4 nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning.

One dimensional spinel CoFe2O4 nanofibers were synthesized via the electrospinning technique. The nanofibers were calcined at different temperatures. All CoFe2O4 nanofibers show excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance. The nanofibers calcined at 750 °C have a multi-particle nanochain structure. The nanochain exhibits excellent catalytic performance for OER in 1 M KOH (pH = 14) producing a current density of 10 mA cm-2 at an overpotential of 0.34 V, and the small onset potential of 1.32 V versus RHE, better than that of the commercial Ir/C (20%) catalyst. Furthermore, the stability of CoFe2O4 multi-particle nanochains toward the OER decreases by only 0.78% even after a long period of 80 000 s. Our finding suggests that CoFe2O4 nanofibers with a multi-particle nanochain structure could serve as a new group of OER electrocatalysts with excellent performance.

Coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity in YBCO nanoparticles.

Nanoparticles of superconducting YBa(2)Cu(3)O(7-δ) were synthesized via a citrate pyrolysis technique. Room temperature ferromagnetism was revealed in the samples by a vibrating sample magnetometer. Electron spin resonance spectra at selected temperatures indicated that there is a transition from the normal to the superconducting state at temperatures below 100 K. The M-T curves with various applied magnetic fields showed that the superconducting transition temperatures are 92 K and 55 K for the air-annealed and the post-annealed samples, respectively. Compared to the air-annealed sample, the saturation magnetization of the sample by reheating the air-annealed one in argon atmosphere is enhanced but its superconductivity is weakened, which implies that the ferromagnetism maybe originates from the surface oxygen defects. By superconducting quantum interference device measurements, we further confirmed the ferromagnetic behavior at high temperatures and interesting upturns in field cooling magnetization curves within the superconducting region are found. We attributed the upturn phenomena to the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity at low temperatures. Room temperature ferromagnetism of superconducting YBa(2)Cu(3)O(7-δ) nanoparticles has been observed in some previous related studies, but the issue of the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity within the superconducting region is still unclear. In the present work, it will be addressed in detail. The cooperation phenomena found in the spin-singlet superconductors will help us to understand the nature of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in more depth.

Synthesis and magnetic properties of Zr doped ZnO Nanoparticles.

Zr doped ZnO nanoparticles are prepared by the sol-gel method with post-annealing. X-ray diffraction results show that all samples are the typical hexagonal wurtzite structure without any other new phase, as well as the Zr atoms have successfully entered into the ZnO lattices instead of forming other lattices. Magnetic measurements indicate that all the doping samples show room temperature ferromagnetism and the pure ZnO is paramagneism. The results of Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicate that there are a lot of oxygen vacancies in the samples by doping element of Zr. It is considered that the observed ferromagnetism is related to the doping induced oxygen vacancies.

Synthesis, magnetic anisotropy and optical properties of preferred oriented zinc ferrite nanowire arrays.

Preferred oriented ZnFe2O4 nanowire arrays with an average diameter of 16 nm were fabricated by post-annealing of ZnFe2 nanowires within anodic aluminum oxide templates in atmosphere. Selected area electron diffraction and X-ray diffraction exhibit that the nanowires are in cubic spinel-type structure with a [110] preferred crystallite orientation. Magnetic measurement indicates that the as-prepared ZnFe2O4 nanowire arrays reveal uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, and the easy magnetization direction is parallel to the axis of nanowire. The optical properties show the ZnFe2O4 nanowire arrays give out 370-520 nm blue-violet light, and their UV absorption edge is around 700 nm. The estimated values of direct and indirect band gaps for the nanowires are 2.23 and 1.73 eV, respectively.