Structural, optical and magnetic properties of NiO/Ni nanocomposite

NiO nanoparticles and NiO/Ni nanocomposites are synthesized by wet chemical route. These samples are characterized by XRD, UV-Visible spectrometer and PPMS-VSM. XRD characterization of the samples indicated that NiO crystalizes in fcc phase and the nanocomposite sample contains both NiO and Ni phases. UV-visible characterization indicated the band gap of NiOis reduced from ~3.8 eV to ~3.6 eV while making nanocomposite with Ni. Magnetic characterization of the NiO sample indicated the observation of ferromagnetic like hysteresis loop with missing saturation behaviour could possibly due to the interaction between surface and core of NiO nanoparticles. In addition to weak ferromagnetism of NiO, Ni moments also contribute to net magnetization in NiO/Ni nanocomposite. Hence the appearance of strong ferromagnetism is observed for NiO/Ni nanocomposite. Our study indicated that NiO/Ni nanocomposite sample could be used for device applications. (author)