Gram-scale synthesis, thermal stability, magnetic properties, and microwave absorption application of extremely small Co–C core–shell nanoparticles

Co-C core-shell nanoparticles have been synthesized in large quantity (in grams) by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition with analytical cobalt (III) acetylacetonate as precursor. Extremely small nanoparticles with an average core diameter of 3 nm and a shell thickness of 1-2 nm, and relatively large nanoparticles with an average core diameter of 23 nm and a shell thickness of 5-20 nm were obtained, depending on the deposition regions. The 3 nm Co nanocores are thermally stable up to 200 °C in air atmosphere, and do not exhibit visible structural and morphological changes after exposure to air at room temperature for 180 d. The extremely small core-shell nanoparticles exhibit typical superparamagnetic behaviors with a small coercivity of 5 Oe, while the relative large nanoparticles are a typical ferromagnetic material with a high coercivity of 584 Oe. In the microwave absorption tests, a low reflection loss (RL) of -80.3 dB and large effective bandwidth (frequency range for RL -10-dB) of 10.1 GHz are obtained in the nanoparticle-paraffin composites with appropriate layer thicknesses and particle contents. This suggests that the as-synthesized Co-C core-shell nanoparticles have a high potential as the microwave-absorbing materials.