Chemical bonding assembly of multifunctional oxide nanocomposites

The synthesis, functionalization and assembly of metal oxide nanoparticles BaTiO3 and CoFe2O4 is presented. The ferroelectric (BaTiO3) and ferromagnetic (CoFe2O4) oxide nanoparticle surfaces are directly functionalized via the anchoring of phosphonic acid and aminosilane molecules that engender the nanoparticles with terminal carboxylic acid and amine functional groups, respectively. These promote the electrostatic self-assembly of the particles in non-polar solvents and permit the synthesis of more chemically robust assemblies linked by the covalent amide bond via the addition of the chemical coupling agent N-N'-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide. This functionalization and assembly procedure is applied to two systems: the first comprised of 50?nm BaTiO3 and 10?nm CoFe2O4 particles and the second of 200?nm BaTiO3 and 12.5?nm CoFe2O4 particles. The latter composites possess magnetoelectric properties when processed into dense ceramics and, as a direct result of the assembly performed in solution, have a high degree of homogeneity between the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic phases. The developed functionalization and assembly procedure is considered to be adaptable to the preparation of other hybrid oxide nanomaterials with different property combinations.