We report a general chemical approach to synthesize strongly ferromagnetic rare earth metal (REM) based SmCo and SmFeN nanoparticles (NPs) with ultra-large coercivity. The synthesis started with the preparation of hexagonal CoO + Sm2O3 (denoted as SmCo-O) multipods via decomposition of Sm(acac)3 and Co(acac)3 in oleylamine. These multipods were further reduced with Ca at 850 °C to form SmCo5 NPs with sizes tunable from 50 to 200 nm. The 200 nm SmCo5 NPs were dispersed in ethanol, and magnetically aligned in polyethylene glycol (PEG) matrix, yielding a PEG-SmCo5 NP composite with the room temperature coercivity (Hc) of 49.2 kOe, the largest Hc among all ferromagnetic NPs ever reported, and saturated magnetic moment (Ms) of 88.7 emu/g, the highest value reported for SmCo5 NPs. The method was extended to synthesize other ferromagnetic NPs of Sm2Co17, and, for the first time, of Sm2Fe17N3 NPs with Hc over 15 kOe and Ms reaching 127.9 emu/g. These REM based NPs are important magnetic building blocks for fabrication of high performance permanent magnets, flexible magnets, and printable magnetic inks for energy and sensing applications.

Chemical synthesis of magnetically hard rare-earth metal nanoparticles

2019 Spring National Meeting

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