Synthesis and Characterization of Partially Metallic Chromium Hollow Nanospheres: A Step toward the Tuning of Magnetic Property.

At present hollow nanostructures have been intensive topics of research due to their superior properties over their solid nano counterparts. In this study uniform size chromium hollow nanospheres were synthesized by polyol method followed by simple corrosion etching using a proper solvent combination strategy. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and UV Visible spectroscopy have been applied to follow the conversion of precursor into metal particles and then hollow nanospheres respectively. Particle size and morphology have been characterized by particle size analyzer and Field Emission Scanning Electron microscopy (FE SEM). The crystal structures of chromium species such as CrO₂ and Cr₂O₃ resulted from CrOOH have been determined by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been applied to evaluate the surface binding energy of chromium ions. Self arranged hollow nanospheres have shown temperature-dependent magnetization. In this way magnetic property of solid chromium nanospheres has been tuned by converting them into hollow nanospheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]