Template-Assisted Chemical Vapor Deposited Spinel Ferrite Nanotubes

Summary Spinel ternary and quaternary nanotubes have been depositedusing template-assisted CVD at 450 °C. It is likely that theseferrite structures (ternary and quaternary) are being formed atsuch low temperatures only as a consequence of increasednanoscale reactivity between the different elemental constituents.Increased nanoscale reactivity as well as size-dependent proper-ties are well documented in the literature. To the best of ourknowledge, this is first reported study of chemical vapordeposited copper ferrite spinel nanotubes at temperatures lessthan 700 °C. Application of template-assisted CVD of spinelnanotubes offers the unique possibility to deposit multicompo-nent and multilayered nanotubes of a wide variety of magneticand nonmagnetic materials. Such experiments are currentlybeing explored in our laboratories. Acknowledgment. We would like to acknowledge financialsupport under NSF CHE-9977398, DMR-0114093, DMR-9870997, and CHE-9808024 for acquisition of instruments. Wealso acknowledge the assistance of Dr. John Chandler, Dr. GaryZito, and the electron microscopy center at the Colorado Schoolof Mines for the use of their HR-TEM.