Synthesis and characterization of PVP-coated Co0.3Zn0.7Fe2O4 ferrite nanoparticles

Co0.3Zn0.7Fe2O4 nanoparticles coated with polyvinylpirrolydone (PVP) were synthesized using the two-step chemical method. The structural and magnetic properties of uncoated and PVP-coated nanoparticles were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), ac susceptibility, and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The XRD patterns revealed a single phase cubic spinel structure in both types of nanoparticles. Average crystallite size of the samples decreased from 35 to 16 nm after PVP coating. VSM results indicated no hysteresis in any of the samples, which suggested their supreparamagnetic behaviour at room temperature. Ac susceptibility measurements showed that strong inter-particle magnetic interactions led to a superspin glass-like behaviour at low temperatures. Moreover, inter-particle interactions were found to decrease with increasing PVP content as a result of surface coating of the magnetic nanoparticles. The same measurements showed that the relative sensitivity of the samples to applied frequency increased with increasing PVP content to reach its maximum for a PVP to Co0.3Zn0.7Fe2O4 nanoparticle ratio of 0.75.