An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Nanostructured quasi one-dimensional magnetic materials (nanowires) have attracted significant scientific and technological interest because they exhibit unique magnetic properties not displayed by their bulk or nanoparticle counterparts. Nanocrystalline ferrites belong to this class of magnetic materials known for their spontaneous magnetization. Their technological interest lies in the potential application for high density magnetic recording media and the fabrication of sensors and spintronic devices1-6. The approaches adopted to fabricate one-dimensional nanostructures include thermal evaporation and template assisted growth, vapor phase transport process with the assistance of metal catalysts, hydrothermal, and electrospinning7-10. The common problems associated with chemical and physical processes are cost, aggregation and coarsening of particles at elevated temperatures, and shape control that limits their applications 11-23. These methods have proven to be a fundamental challenge. We have discovered a simple approach to produce ferrite nanowires of almost any composition. Here, we describe room temperature fabrication of nanowires of 8-10 ?m in length and 100-200 nm in diameter by applying magnetic field to a reverse micelle system. The nanowires exhibit higher coercivity at 2K compared to nanoparticles, and they are paramagnetic at 300 K.