Magnetic nanoparticles and nanocrystalline thin film have attracted enormous research
interest during the last few decades due to wide spread applications of these materials in
advanced optoelectronic, magnetic and bio devices. Chemical Bath Deposition Technique
being a simple and cost-effective method has been adopted to produce nanocrystalline
thin films and powder of iron oxide. The deposition methodology was optimized to
achieve homogeneous growth of nanostructures. The iron oxide nanostructures and
deposited thin films have been further characterized by X-ray diffraction, Scanning
Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Vibrating Sample
Magnetometer (VSM) techniques in order to investigate their structural, morphological
and magnetic properties, respectively. XRD patterns revealed that deposited thin films
and powder exhibit polycrystalline structure with cubic phase. Broader diffraction peaks
confirmed the growth of nanocrystals in all samples. Crystallite size was estimated by
Scherer’s equation and found to be 3.18 and 0.60 nm for powder sample and thin film,
respectively. Morphology analysis revealed that grains are grown with variable size in
both samples i.e. powder and thin film. For powder samples, grains with size ranging
from 16 to 100 nm and for thin film samples, grains with size ranging from 5 to 60 nm
have been observed. Almost uniform growth of clusters which are distributed throughout
the substrate surface in case of thin films demonstrated the controlled growth of
nanostructures. EDX analysis confirmed the presence of essential precursors with desired
stoichiometry in all samples. Magnetic properties (M-H curves) of the samples revealed
that saturation magnetization of powder and thin film has the value of 2.1x10-5 and
6.2x10-3 emu, respectively. Magnetite nanoparticles show more coercivity and retentivitiy
as compared to that of thin film. These nanostructured thin films might have potential
applications in advanced magnetic and recording materials.