Structural, morphological, and magnetic study of nanocrystalline cobalt-copper powders synthesized by the polyol process

Abstract

Nanocrystalline CoxCu100−x (4 ⋚ x ⋚ 49 at. %) powders were prepared by the reduction of metal acetates in a polyol. The structure of powders was characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). As-synthesized powders were composites consisting of nanoscale crystallites of face-centered cubic (fcc) Cu and metastable face-centered cubic (fcc) Co. Complementary results of XRD, HRTEM, EXAFS, NMR, and VSM confirmed that there was no metastable alloying between Co and Cu. The NMR data also revealed that there was some hexagonal-closed-packed (hcp) Co in the samples. The powders were agglomerated, and consisted of aggregates of nanoscale crystallites of Co and Cu. Upon annealing, the powders with low Co contents showed an increase in both saturation magnetization and coercivity with increasing temperature. The results suggested that during preparation the nucleation of Cu occurred first, and the Cu crystallites served as nuclei for the formation of Co.