Spark Plasma Sintering of Co80Ni20 nanopowders synthesized by polyol process and their magnetic and mechanical properties

A bottom-up process to elaborate nanostructured cobalt materials is here described. We first, synthesized Co80Ni20 nanowires with a mean length L ∼ 270 nm and a mean diameter d ∼ 7 nm and Co80Ni20 nanospheres with a mean diameter D ∼ 200 nm. This was done by a polyol process in presence of Ruthenium (III) chloride hydrate nucleating agent. Then the as-obtained nanopowders were consolidated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) in order to limit the grain size growth. Nanostructures of powders and of the processed bulk samples were studied and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and field emission gun scanning electron microscope (FEGSEM). Standard VSM measurements were processed for magnetic characterizations. Magnetic static measurements were performed at 10 K and 300 K showing that magnetic properties of nanostructured cobalt bulk systems can be tuned from hard to soft just changing the shape of nano-systems used for compaction and/or the sintering conditions. Also the mechanical properties show a strong dependence on the relative bulk densities and on the characteristics of grain inside the consolidated samples. Preliminary results show that nanostructured cobalt obtained from nanowires compaction present higher Vickers Hardness value.