Heterogeneous magnetic state in nanocrystalline cupric oxide CuO

This paper presents the results of investigations of the structural state and magnetic properties of nanocrystalline cupric oxide samples with average particle sizes of approximately 40 and 13 nm, which were synthesized by the electric explosion and gas phase methods, respectively. The samples have been studied using X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, magnetic measurements, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and copper nuclear magnetic resonance. It has been shown that, in the initial state, regardless of the synthesis method, CuO nanoparticles are characterized by a heterogeneous magnetic state, i.e., by the existence of long-range antiferromagnetic order, spontaneous magnetization, especially at low temperatures, and paramagnetic centers in the material. The ferromagnetic contribution is probably caused by the formation of magnetic polaron states due to the phase separation induced in the system by excess charge carriers as a result of the existence of point defects (vacancies in the anion sublattice) in the nanocrystalline state. In this state, there is an inhomogeneously broadened nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum, which is a superposition of the spectrum of the initial antiferromagnetic matrix and the spectrum of ferromagnetically ordered regions. At high concentrations of ferromagnetically ordered regions, the antiferromagnetic matrix exhibits a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum of CuO nanoparticles, predominantly from regions with the ferromagnetic phase. The appearance of magnetization can also be partly due to the frustration of spins in CuO, and this state is presumably localized near the most imperfect surface of the nanoparticles. The magnetic susceptibility of nanoparticles in the initial state in strong magnetic fields is significantly higher than that for the annealed samples, which, most likely, is associated with the influence of the high concentration of magnetic polarons. No correlation between the ferromagnetic contribution and the size of particles is found. In the CuO samples annealed at 400°C in air, when the average size of CuO nanoparticles remains unchanged, the ferromagnetic contribution completely disappears, and the magnetic behavior of the nanoparticles becomes qualitatively similar to the magnetic behavior of bulk CuO.