Quantum confinement of Bi2S3 in glass with magnetic behavior

Abstract

The novel Bi2S3 quantum dots (QDs) glass nanosystems with unique magnetic properties have been investigated. The monodispersed QDs of size in the range of 3 to 15 nm were grown in the glass matrix. The optical study of these nanosystems clearly demonstrated the size quantization effect resulting in a pronounced band gap variation with QD size. The magnetic properties of the pristine glass and the Bi2S3 QD glass nanosystems were investigated by VSM and SQUID magnetometer. The pristine glass did not show any ferromagnetism while the Bi2S3 glass nanosystems showed significant and reproducible ferromagnetism. We also investigated the effect of the size of Bi2S3 QDs on the magnetic properties. The saturation magnetization for the 15 nm QD glass-nanosystem (124 memu/g) was observed to be higher as compared to the 3nm QD glass nanosystem (58.2 memu/g). The SQUID measurement gave the excellent hysteresis up to 300K. Surprisingly, the bulk Bi2S3 powder is diamagnetic in nature but Bi2S3 quantum dots glass nanosystem showed the ferromagnetic behavior for the first time. The investigated novel QD glass-nanosystem may have a potential application in spintronic devices and most importantly, this nanosystem can be fabricated in any usable shape as per the device requirement.