Nickel ferrite nanoparticles:: elaboration in polyol medium via hydrolysis, and magnetic properties

Ultrafine magnetic nickel ferrite NiFe2O4 particles of high crystallinity were directly prepared by forced hydrolysis of ionic iron (III) and nickel (II) solutions in 2-hydroxyethyl ether at about 478 K under atmospheric pressure. The resulting nickel ferrite particles exhibit very interesting magnetic properties: they are superparamagnetic at room temperature and have a saturation magnetization close to that of the bulk at low temperature. An in-field Mossbauer study shows clearly that this surprising behaviour is mainly due to: (i) a departure of the cation distribution from the classical distribution encountered in the bulk material and (ii) the absence of spin canting for both tetrahedral and octahedral cations.