Competing interparticle interactions and surface anisotropy in NiO nanoparticles

Abstract

We report unconventional magnetic properties on NiO nanoparticles of an average diameter ∼5.8(7) nm obtained by coprecipitation method. To investigate the effect of the intra and interparticles interactions in the magnetic properties nanoparticles were dispersed in a polyvinyl-pyrrodone matrix at two different concentrations. X-ray, ac, and dc magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance experiments were carried out on powder and dispersed NiO systems. Our results show that dispersed and concentrated samples exhibit following two different magnetic behaviors: (i) a high temperature peak related to the blocking of the particle core and (ii) a low temperature maximum likely related to the freezing of the frustrated spins on surface particle. Besides, we have observed that the low temperature maximum is not field-dependent and depend strongly on the distance among particles. This result can be understood taking account the decreasing of the dipolar interaction to more dispersed samples.