Sunday, December 6, 2009

Magnetic properties

Bulk gold and Pt are non-magnetic, but at the nano size they are magnetic. Surface atoms not only are different to bulk atoms, but they can also be modified by interaction with other chemical species, that is, by capping the nanoparticles. This phenomenon opens the possibility to modify the physical properties of the nanoparticles by capping them with appropriate molecules. Actually, it should be possible that non-ferromagnetic bulk materials exhibit ferromagnetic-like behavior when prepared in nano range. One can obtain magnetic nanoparticles of Pd, Pt and the surprising case of Au (that is diamagnetic in bulk) from non-magnetic bulk materials. In the case of Pt and Pd, the ferromagnetism arises from the structural changes associated with size effects. However, gold nanoparticles become ferromagnetic when they are capped with appropriate molecules: the charge localized at the particle surface gives rise to ferromagnetic-like behavior.

Surface and the core of Au nanoparticles with 2 nm in diameter show ferromagnetic and paramagnetic character, respectively. The large spin-orbit coupling of these noble metals can yield to a large anisotropy and therefore exhibit high ordering temperatures. More surprisingly, permanent magnetism was observed up to room temperature for thiol-capped Au nanoparticles. For nanoparticles with sizes below 2 nm the localized carriers are in the 5 d band. Bulk Au has an extremely low density of states and becomes diamagnetic, as is also the case for bare Au nanoparticles. This observation suggested that modification of the d band structure by chemical bonding can induce ferromagneticlike character in metallic clusters.

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