QAU Physicists’ Paper on NANOPARTICLES In Top 1% Of Global Citations

Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) Physics faculty members Dr. Arif Mumtaz and Dr. S.K. Hasanain, have achieved a rare recognition for their paper “Synthesis and magnetic properties of cobalt ferrite (CoFe₂O₄) nanoparticles prepared by wet chemical route” published in The Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, which is in the top 1% of internationally cited papers according to the Thomson-Reuters ISI Impact Factor Index. The paper has 297 citations on that index, which makes it the most cited paper from any physics department in Pakistan. It also has 414 Google Scholar citations.

Nanoparticles are ultra-small particles with a minimum of one dimension smaller than 100 nanometers (1 nanometer = one billionth of a meter). These super tiny particles act as the building blocks of matter and form the link between bulk materials on the one hand and atoms and molecules and related structures on the other. Investigation into nanoparticles has a wide variety of uses, which include medicine, optics, and electronics.

At Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, the Department of Physics is engaged in research into these strange and potentially highly useful particles. The project from which the paper is derived was focused on the magnetic nanoparticles, their synthesis and magnetic properties. These particles were studied in the range 12 nm to 50 nm and were synthesized by wet chemical methods. Magnetic properties such as coercivity (resistance of magnetic material to fluctuations in magnetization), remanance (residual) magnetization and saturation magnetization were studied as function of size of the nanoparticles. Originally published in 2007, the paper crossed this prestigious citation threshold in 2015 and is still gaining popularity.