Decoration of In2O3 nanowires with BaTiO3 nanoparticles for enhancement of magnetic properties

Abstract

We have fabricated the composite nanowires consisting of In2O3 core and BaTiO3 shell, via a two-step method. The BaTiO3 shell has been deposited on core In2O3 core nanowires by means of pulsed laser deposition technique. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy were employed to analyze the structure and morphology of the products. While SEM confirmed that the products maintained the one dimensional morphology, the shell layer corresponded to the nanoparticles of the hexagonal BaTiO3 phase. With bare In2O3 nanowires exhibiting weak ferromagnetism, the ferromagnetic behavior was enhanced by decorating the In2O3 nanowires with BaTiO3 nanoparticles. The shell coating enhanced the ferromagnetic behavior at both 5 and 300 K, in terms of the increase of coercive field, remanent magnetization, and saturation magnetization values in the hysteresis curves. We suggested that the generation of BaTiO3 nanoparticles and oxygen vacancies during the high-temperature shell coating process played a role in enhancing the ferromagnetic properties of the nanowires.