Goethite (α-FeOOH) Nanorods as Suitable Antiferromagnetic Substrates

Abstract

We propose goethite nanorods as suitable antiferromagnetic substrates. The great advantage of using these inorganic nanostructures as building blocks comes from the fact that it permits the design and fabrication of colloidal and supracolloidal assemblies knowing first their magnetic characteristics. As a proof of concept, we have developed mix multifunctional systems, driving on the surface of these AFM substrates, cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (the study of bimagnetic systems opens new degrees of freedom to tailor the overall properties and offers the Meiklejohn–Bean paradigm, but inverted), a silica shell (protection purposes, but also as a tailored spacer that permits controlling magnetic interactions), and metallic gold clusters (seeds that can favor the acquisition of optical or catalytic properties).