Tuning the size and shape of oxide nanoparticles by controlling oxygen content in the reaction environment: Morphological analysis by aspect maps

The thermal decomposition of acetylacetonate precursors is one of the most employed syntheses to prepare high quality colloidal magnetic nanoparticles. In this paper, an advanced version of this synthetic approach was developed to prepare cobalt ferrite nanoparticles, introducing for the first time a rigorous control on one commonly neglected reaction parameter, that is, the residual oxygen content in the reaction environment. A new concept derived from the statistical analysis of S(T)EM images, i.e., the so-called aspects maps, was introduced: this tool has allowed us to clearly identify the optimal value of pressure to produce particles with an average size ∼19 nm and with a very narrow size distribution (polydispersity 0.4 nm-1). The magnetic properties of this sample were also analyzed, and a strong improvement of the magnetization reversal mechanism, which is a critical issue for several technological applications, was observed.