Characterization of core-shell magnetic manoparticles in carbon matrices annealed by oxygen and nitrogen*

A new family of magnetic nanoparticles with core-shell architecture dispersed in complex carbonaceous matrixes using metal free and iron-, nickel-, and cobalt- precursors of phthalocyanine, porphyrin (TPP and TCPP) modifications with and without oxygen content have been synthesized at different temperatures, time of pyrolysis, and post-annealing conducted at temperatures ranging from 150°C to 550°C under controlled oxygen- and/or nitrogen-rich environments. The characterization of the synthesized materials was performed by several different techniques. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-STEM) with elemental mapping, powdered X-ray diffraction (PXRD) analysis, and magnetic measurements by utilizing vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). Although STEM, SEM, PXRD may be one of the most efficient techniques available for studying the morphological characteristics of magnetic nanoparticles, analyzing them quantitatively in a statistical manner is exceedingly difficult. Herein, we unveil groundbreaking analysis of the morphologies of nanoparticles by applying a genetic algorithm designed to process SEM, HR-STEM, PXRD images data and seamlessly map these with VSM data and their impact on magnetic properties. We expect this method to become a powerful tool and aid in expanding nanoparticle-related research into the statistical domain for use in big data analysis.