CRYSTAL-GROWTH OF CO FERRITE ON FINE ACICULAR GAMMA-FE2O3 PARTICLES

Highly coercive magnetic powder was obtained by growing cobalt ferrite on the surface of γ-Fe2O3 particles in highly alkaline suspensions containing cobalt and ferrous ions in a Co/Fe molar ratio = 1 2. The mechanism of the growth and the structure of cobalt ferrite on γ-Fe2O3 were studied by X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction techniques. Results show that crystals of cobalt ferrite CoFe2O4 with a spinel type crystal structure of lattice constant 8.415 Å grew epitaxially on γ-Fe2O3. The acicular direction of the epitaxially grown Co-γ-Fe2O3 as well as γ-Fe2O3 was in the [101] direction. It was found that from the lattice constant value and the half width of X-ray diffraction peaks, the lattice constant epitaxially grown Co γ-Fe2O3 may be attributed to two kinds of crystals, viz., seed γ-Fe2O3 (a = 8.35 ∼ 8.37 A ̊) which was partly reduced to Fe3O4, and surface layer CoFe2O4 (a = 8.415 A ̊). The crystal growth in the interface between the seed crystals and the growth layer was affected by the crystal structure of the seed crystals. The lattice constant of CoFe2O4 which was located in the vicinity of the interface was almost equal to that of the seed crystals. © 1979.