Single domain Co2FeGa nanoparticles with high crystalline order synthesized by template-less chemical method

Abstract

Co2FeGa nanoparticles with stable L21 type full Heusler alloy structure have been synthesized with average crystallite sizes of 57 nm, 47 nm and 39 nm using a simple template-less chemical route. All these nanoparticles in single domain regime exhibit soft ferromagnetic nature with high saturation magnetization (>93 % of theoretical estimate), low coercive field (<10 Oe) and high Curie temperature (>1100 K). Near zero coercive field and remanence magnetization values of these nanoparticles indicate their superparamagnetic nature. Ab initio calculations were performed to estimate the magnetic moment and the half metallic nature of the Heusler alloy particles from the density of states of the spin-up and spin-down bands.