Control of Crystal Phase and Agglomeration of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Gas Phase Synthesis

The effects of reaction temperature and precursor concentration on the microstructure and magnetic properties of ${\gamma}-Fe_2O_3$ nanoparticles synthesized as final products of iron acetylacetonate in chemical vapor condensation (CVC) were investigated. Pure ${\gamma}-Fe_2O_3$ phase was obtained at temperature above $900^{\circ}C$ and crystallite size of ${\gamma}-Fe_2O_3$ nanoparticles decreased with lowering precursor concentration. Also, the coercivity decreases with decreasing crystallite size of nanopowder. The lowest coercivity was 7.8 Oe, which was obtained from the ${\gamma}-Fe_2O_3$ nanopowder sample synthesized at precursor concentration of 0.3M. Then, the crystallite size of ${\gamma}-Fe_2O_3$ nanoparticles was 8.8 nm.