A combined micro-Raman, X-ray absorption and magnetic study to follow the glycerol-assisted growth of epsilon-iron oxide sol-gel coatings

[EN] Epsilon iron oxide (ε-FeO) coatings on Si(100) substrates are obtained by an easy one-pot sol-gel recipe assisted by glycerol in an acid medium. Glycerol, given its small dimensions, enables the formation of ε-FeO nanoparticles with a size of a few nanometers and the highest purity is reached in coatings after a densification treatment at 960 °C. The structural and compositional evolution up to 1200 °C is studied by confocal Raman microscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy techniques, correlating the existing magnetic properties. We report a novel characterization method, which allows monitoring the evolution of the precursor micelles as well as the intermediate and final phases formed. Furthermore, the inherent industrial technology transfer of the sol-gel process is also demonstrated with the ε-FeO polymorph, impelling its application in the coatings form.
This work has been supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN, Spain) through the projects PIE: 2021-60-E-030, PIE: 2010-6-OE-013, PID2019-104717RB-I00 (2020–2022), MAT2017-86540-C4-1-R, RTI2018-095856-B-C21 (2019–2021), RTI2018-097895-B-C43 and RTI2018-095303-A-C52. The authors are grateful to The ESRF (France), MCINN and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC, Spain) for the provision of synchrotron radiation facilities and to the BM25-SpLine Staff for their valuable help. A.S.and A.M.-N acknowledge financial support from Comunidad de Madrid (Spain) for an “Atracción de Talento Investigador” Contract 2017-t2/IND5395 and 2018-T1/IND-10360, respectively