A comprehensive study of structural and magnetic properties of sputter deposited nickel–silica thin films

The present work reports the formation of Ni nanoparticles inside the SiO2 matrix and deals with the influence of Ni concentration on structural and magnetic properties of Ni–SiO2 nanocomposite thin films. The films with varying Ni concentration (20–55 at% measured by Rutherford back scattering spectroscopy) were deposited using DC/RF magnetron co-sputtering. TEM and XRD analysis reveal the formation of FCC Ni nanoparticles in all the samples. The particle size varies from 3 to 10 nm as a function of Ni concentration. The surface roughness of the films is also found to increase with increase in nickel concentration. Magnetic measurements show that the Ni nanoparticles behave as superparamagnets when their size is ≤6 nm, in spite of their large volume fractions. The results show that the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles can be controlled by their size and Ni concentration in the samples.

► Ni nanoparticles embedded in silica matrix have been synthesized by DC/RF sputtering.
► Magnetic properties of nickel nanoparticles have been found size dependent strongly.
► Ni nanoparticles are found to be superparamagnetic ≤6 nm.
► Coercivity decreases with increase in particle size and concentration.