Tunable particle-agglomeration and magnetic coupling in bi-magnetic nanocomposites

A set of non-stoichiometric Zn-Co-ferrite nanoparticles (NPs) was prepared by thermal decomposition of metallic complexes, in the presence of oleic acid, and, after a ligand-exchange process, was coated by a hydrophilic surfactant: these NPs were used as seeds in a sol-gel self-combustion synthesis to prepare nanocomposites (NCs) with a fixed weight ratio. Our focus here is the development of an efficient synthetic approach to control the magnetic coupling between a hard-magnetic matrix (Sr-ferrite) and NPs. The physico-chemical synthetic conditions (temperature, pH, colloidal stability) were optimized in order to tune their effect on the final particles' agglomeration in the matrix. We demonstrate that our synthetic approach is a novel way to produce strongly magnetically coupled NCs, where the final extrinsic properties could be tuned by controlling (i) the agglomeration of seeds in the matrix and (ii) their elemental doping.