Enhanced saturation magnetization in buckypaper-films of thin walled carbon nanostructures filled with Fe3C, FeCo, FeNi, CoNi, Co and Ni crystals: the key role of Cl

Abstract

We report an advanced chemical vapour deposition approach which allows the direct in situ synthesis of cm-length ultrathin buckypapers comprising carbon nanostructures filled with Fe₃C, FeCo, FeNi, CoNi, Co and Ni by sublimation and pyrolysis of single or combined metallocenes with very low quantities of dichlorobenzene. As a result, extremely high saturation magnetizations of 117 emu g⁻¹, 90 emu g⁻¹ and 80 emu g⁻¹ are obtained for the specific cases of Fe₃C, FeCo and FeNi, respectively, while variable saturation magnetizations of 70 emu g⁻¹, 58 emu g⁻¹ and 6.7 emu g⁻¹ are obtained for Co, CoNi and Ni respectively.