Magnetic properties of iron nanoparticle

Magnetic properties of Fe nanoparticles with different sizes synthesized by a physical deposition technique have been investigated experimentally. We have used a high pressure sputtering technique to deposit iron nanoparticles on a silicon substrate. The nanoparticles are then analyzed using atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and superconducting quantum interference device techniques. TEM and AFM data show that the particle size could be tuned by adjusting the deposition conditions. The magnetic properties have been investigated from temperature dependent magnetization M(T) and field dependent magnetization M(H) measurements. The results show that two phases including both ferromagnetic and superparamagnetic particles are present in our system. From these data we extracted the superparamagnetic critical size to be 9 nm for our samples. Ferromagnetic particles are single magnetic domain particles and the magnetic properties can be explained by the Stoner and Wohlfarth model. For the superparamagnetic phase, the effective anisotropy constant, K(eff), decreases as the particle size increases. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3428415]