Presented by Dr. Vanessa Pool
The dopant behavior of spinels has been investigated for over half a century and yet new insight into this class of materials is still being made today. In this work, the question of dopant site preference is explored for the nanoparticle regime. Iron oxide nanoparticles have numerous exciting applications. To realize these applications, controlling the preferred dopant site and valence within the host material is important. X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) are element specific techniques with magnetic contrast that give insights into the material composition. Using both XAS and XMCD, the valence and dopant site can be determined for various dopant materials, and the affect this has on the nanoparticle’s magnetic properties can be investigated.