Permanent magnetism, magnetic anisotropy, and hysteresis of thiol-capped gold nanoparticles

We report on the experimental observation of magnetic hysteresis up to room temperature in thiol-capped Au nanoparticles with 1.4 nm size. The coercive field ranges from 860 Oe at 5 K to 250 Oe at 300 K. It is estimated that the Au atoms exhibit a magnetic moment of mu=0.036mu(B). However, Au nanopa...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Crespo del Arco, Patricia, Litran, R., Rojas, T. C., Multigner, M., De la Fuente, J. M., Sánchez López, J. C., Garcia, M. A., Hernando Grande, Antonio, Penadés, S., Fernández, A.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2004
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/52018
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/52018
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:538.9
Nanoclusters
Física de materiales
Física del estado sólido
2211 Física del Estado Sólido
Descripción
Sumario:We report on the experimental observation of magnetic hysteresis up to room temperature in thiol-capped Au nanoparticles with 1.4 nm size. The coercive field ranges from 860 Oe at 5 K to 250 Oe at 300 K. It is estimated that the Au atoms exhibit a magnetic moment of mu=0.036mu(B). However, Au nanoparticles with similar size but stabilized by means of a surfactant, i.e., weak interaction between protective molecules and Au surface atoms, are diamagnetic, as bulk Au samples are. The apparent ferromagnetism is consequently associated with 5d localized holes generated through Au-S bonds. These holes give rise to localized magnetic moments that are frozen in due to the combination of the high spin-orbit coupling (1.5 eV) of gold and the symmetry reduction associated with two types of bonding: Au-Au and Au-S.