Crystallographically oriented magnetic ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles synthesized by Fe implantation into ZnO

In this paper, a correlation between structural and magnetic properties of Fe-implanted ZnO is presented. High fluence Fe+ implantation into ZnO leads to the formation of superparamagnetic alpha-Fe nanoparticles. High vacuum annealing at 823K results in the growth of alpha-Fe particles, but the annealing at 1073K oxidizes the majority of the Fe nanoparticles. After a long term annealing at 1073 K, crystallographically oriented ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles are formed inside ZnO with the orientation relationship of ZnFe2O4(111)[110]//ZnO(0001)[1120]. These ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles show a hysteretic behaviour upon magnetization reversal at 5K.