Influence of ball milling and annealing conditions on the properties of L10 FePt nanoparticles fabricated by a new green chemical synthesis method

In this work, a new green chemical strategy for the synthesis of L10 FePt alloy nanoparticles is reported. The precursor is a polycrystalline molecular complex (Fe(H2O)6PtCl6), in which Fe and Pt atoms are arranged on alternating planes and milled with NaCl to form nanocrystals. Then the mixture was annealed under reducing atmosphere (5% H2 and 95% Ar) at temperatures varying from 350 °C to 500 °C for 2 h with a heating rate of 5 °C/min. After the reduction, the mixture was washed with water to remove the NaCl and L10 FePt nanoparticles were obtained. The X-Ray Diffraction pattern showed the presence of the characteristic peaks of the fct phase of FePt nanoparticles. Influence of precursor/NaCl ratio and ball milling time on particle size was investigated. Transmission electron microscopy images revealed that smaller precursor/NaCl ratio (10 mg/20 g) and longer milling time (15 h) lead to smaller particle size and narrower size distribution. Milling time does not influence the coercivity much but the decrease of the amount of precursor leads to a decrease of coercivity from 10.8 kOe to 4.8 kOe.