We report a novel structural and magnetic investigation of carbon foam (CFM) materials filled with SmFeO3 crystals produced by (1) high temperature fusion between Sm2O3- and Fe3C-filled carbon onions and (2) annealing of iron filled CFM with nanosized Sm2O3. Presence of a defect-rich monolayer-like CFM arrangement characterized by sharp interfaces with a SmFeO3 single-crystal phase is demonstrated through TEM and HRTEM. Further, the presence of intense sp3-rich features with variable carbonate content is evidenced by XPS and Raman spectroscopy. Complementary VSM, SQUID and ESR show also presence of intrinsic magnetization features which appeared to be attributable to the interfacial vacancy-rich regions of the graphitic CFM layers, as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. Together with these signals, possible ferromagnetic contributions from the SmFeO3 phase and α-Fe impurities are reported. These observations highlight therefore the presence of switchable interfacial magnetization features at the carbon/SmFeO3 interface due to the variable concentrations of vacancies at the CFM interface, opening new directions towards applications in magnetic and interfacial-driven ferroelectric devices.
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.