Cu vacancies modulated the room temperature ferromagnetism in Cu2O/Cu nanoparticle composites

The Cu2O/Cu nanoparticle composites have been fabricated by heating a mixture of copper nitrate and different amounts of glycine. Magnetic measurement results indicate that the Cu2O/Cu composites show clear ferromagnetism, while the pure Cu2O and Cu show diamagnetism only. Through analyzing the photoluminescence X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results, we proposed that the observed tunable ferromagnetism for the samples is attributed to Cu vacancies, where the interface of Cu2O/Cu composites plays an important role in modulating the concentration of Cu vacancies.