Chemical Ordering in Bimetallic FeCo Nanoparticles: From a Direct Chemical Synthesis to Application As Efficient High-Frequency Magnetic Material.

Single-crystalline FeCo nanoparticles with tunable size and shape were prepared by co-decomposing two metal-amide precursors under mild conditions. The nature of the ligands introduced in this organometallic synthesis drastically affects the reactivity of the precursors and, thus, the chemical distribution within the nanoparticles. The presence of the B2 short-range order was evidenced in FeCo nanoparticles prepared in the presence of HDAHCl ligands, combining 57Fe Mössbauer, zero-field 59Co ferromagnetic nuclear resonance (FNR), and X-ray diffraction studies. This is the first time that the B2 structure is directly formed during synthesis without the need of any annealing step. The as-prepared nanoparticles exhibit magnetic properties comparable with the ones for the bulk ( Ms = 226 Am2·kg-1). Composite magnetic materials prepared from these FeCo nanoparticles led to a successful proof-of-concept of the integration on inductor-based filters (27% enhancement of the inductance value at 100 MHz).

Site-dependent cobalt electronic state in La-Co co-substituted magnetoplumbite-type ferrite: (59)Co nuclear magnetic resonance study.

The nuclear magnetic resonance of (59)Co was measured over a wide frequency range in a powder sample crushed from a well-characterized single crystal of La-Co co-substituted magnetoplumbite-type strontium ferrite (SrFe12O19), a familiar base material for the ferrite permanent magnet. The simultaneous observation of both high- and low-frequency resonances suggests the coexistence of both high- and low-spin states of the substituted Co or the presence of Co orbital moment at a particular site. The possible presence of trivalent Co was also investigated. The results suggest that the Co atoms are distributed across different crystallographic sites with different local environments, and that the electronic state of Co is much more subtle than the conventional understanding.

Sampling the structure and chemical order in assemblies of ferromagnetic nanoparticles by nuclear magnetic resonance.

Assemblies of nanoparticles are studied in many research fields from physics to medicine. However, as it is often difficult to produce mono-dispersed particles, investigating the key parameters enhancing their efficiency is blurred by wide size distributions. Indeed, near-field methods analyse a part of the sample that might not be representative of the full size distribution and macroscopic methods give average information including all particle sizes. Here, we introduce temperature differential ferromagnetic nuclear resonance spectra that allow sampling the crystallographic structure, the chemical composition and the chemical order of non-interacting ferromagnetic nanoparticles for specific size ranges within their size distribution. The method is applied to cobalt nanoparticles for catalysis and allows extracting the size effect from the crystallographic structure effect on their catalytic activity. It also allows sampling of the chemical composition and chemical order within the size distribution of alloyed nanoparticles and can thus be useful in many research fields.

Silicon carbide coated with TiO2 with enhanced cobalt active phase dispersion for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.

The introduction of a thin layer of TiO2 on ß-SiC allows a significant improvement of the cobalt dispersion. This catalyst exhibits an excellent and stable catalytic activity for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) with high C5+ selectivity, which contributes to the development of a new active catalyst family in the gas-to-liquid process.

Size dependent bipolar resistance switching of NiO nanodots for low-power and multi-state operation.

NiO nanodots of various sizes were fabricated via anodic oxidation induced through atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanolithography on an 18 nm thick Ni thin film, and their resistance switching properties were investigated using conductive AFM. We found that NiO nanodots with a medium size of around 15 nm height showed clear bipolar resistance switching. A threshold switching was observed in the NiO nanodots with a larger size due to having a much thinner bottom Ni layer left after oxidation. By adjusting the range of the sweeping voltage, the high resistance state can be controlled to realize multi-state switching. The power consumption during the switching process induced by the AFM tip was found to be lower than the reported power values of the NiO thin film- or NiO nanowires-based resistance switching devices.

Fischer-Tropsch reaction on a thermally conductive and reusable silicon carbide support.

The Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, in which synthesis gas (syngas) derived from coal, natural gas, and biomass is converted into synthetic liquid fuels and chemicals, is a strongly exothermic reaction, and thus, a large amount of heat is generated during the reaction that could severely modify the overall selectivity of the process. In this Review, we report the advantages that can be offered by different thermally conductive supports, that is, carbon nanomaterials and silicon carbide, pure or doped with different promoters, for the development of more active and selective FT catalysts. This Review follows a discussion regarding the clear trend in the advantages and drawbacks of these systems in terms of energy efficiency and catalytic performance for this most-demanded catalytic process. It is demonstrated that the use of a support with an appropriate pore size and thermal conductivity is an effective strategy to tune and improve the activity of the catalyst and to improve product selectivity in the FT process. The active phase and the recovery of the support, which also represents a main concern in terms of the large amount of FT catalyst used and the cost of the active cobalt phase, is also discussed within the framework of this Review. It is expected that a thermally conductive support such as ß-SiC will not only improve the development of the FT process, but that it will also be part of a new support for different catalytic processes for which high catalytic performance and selectivity are strongly needed.

Short period magnetic coupling oscillations in Co/Si multilayers: Theory versus experiment.

Today the magnetic properties of multilayers and nanostructures including a metal or an insulator as a nonmagnetic spacer layer are rather well understood. But they are much more controversial for semiconductor spacers. For instance, for Co/Si multilayers short period coupling oscillations are predicted by ab initio computations but have yet to be observed. Here we show in Co/Si multilayers prepared at low temperature (90 K) strong saturation field oscillations that are consistent with the predicted coupling oscillations. However, the decay length of the oscillations is much longer than the expected one and cannot be explained within the framework of available theories.