Room-temperature ferromagnetism in pure ZnO nanoflowers

ZnO nanoflowers are synthesized by hydrothermal method. The morphology of ZnO is captured by SEM, TEM and HRTEM, which is composed of closely packed nanorods of about 100 nm in diameter and 1 μm in length. The ZFC/FC curves show superparamagnetic features. The abnormal increase in magnetization curves below 14 K comes from the isolated vacancy clusters with no interaction. The magnetic hysteresis at 300 K displays saturation state and confirms room-temperature ferromagnetism. While the magnetic hysteresis at 5 K shows nonsaturation state due to the enhanced effects of vacancy clusters. The O 1s XPS results can be fitted to three Gaussian peaks. The existence of medium-binding energy located at 531.16 eV confirms the deficiency of O ions at the surface of ZnO nanoflowers.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide