Nanoscale amorphous magnetic metals
AssigneeThe Boeing Company
InventorsLarry K. Olli, Diane C. Rawlings, Robert J. Miller
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Abstract
Sonochemistry permits extremely rapid cooling to form nanoscale amorphous metal particles. If magnetic, these particles are valuable for magnetic recording media, manufacture of permanent magnets, and other uses. The nanoscale particles agglomerate, however, which limits their utility for these magnetic applications. To keep the particles isolated, we extract the particles from the n-alkane reaction solvent in a polar solvent and cast the extracted particles with a polymer, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone.
Claims16
A composition having nanoscale, individually-isolated, metal particles, made by the process comprising the steps of:
- (a) sonicating a mixture of a metal carbonyl in an n-alkane solvent to produce an amorphous metal in the form of nanoscale particles;
- (b) extracting the metal particles from the n-alkane in an immiscible polar solvent;
- (c) adding a polymer or polymeric precursors to the polar solvent-metal mixture to isolate the metal particles, thereby forming a polymer-metal mixture;
- and
- (d) separating the polymer-metal mixture from the polar solvent.
Nanoscale, individually-isolated, amorphous, spherical, magnetic metal particles having diameters less than 100 nm carried in and separated one from another by a polymer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.