Magnetic and optical response of tuning the magnetocrystalline anisotropy in Fe3O4 nanoparticle ferrofluids by Co doping

CoxFe3-xO4 (0 <= x <= 0.10) nanoparticles coated with tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide as a surfactant were synthesized by a co-precipitation technique. The Fe:Co ratio was tuned up to x 0.10 by controlling the Co2+ concentration during synthesis. The mean particle size, determined by transmission electron microscopy, ranged between 15 +/- 4 and 18 +/- 4 nm. The superparamagnetic blocking temperature and the magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant of the ferrofluids, determined using ac and dc magnetic measurements, scale approximately linearly with cobalt concentration. We also find distinct differences in the optical response of different samples under an applied magnetic field. We attribute changes in field-induced optical relaxation for the x = 0 and 0.05 samples to differences in the anisotropic microstructure under an applied magnetic field. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.