To overcome the low lithium ion diffusion and slow electron transfer, a hollow micro sphere LiFePO₄/C cathode material with a porous interior structure was synthesized via a solvothermal method by using ethylene glycol (EG) as the solvent medium and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the surfactant. In this strategy, the EG solvent inhibits the growth of the crystals and the CTAB surfactant boots the self-assembly of the primary nanoparticles to form hollow spheres. The resultant carbon-coat LiFePO₄/C hollow micro-spheres have a ~300 nm thick shell/wall consisting of aggregated nanoparticles and a porous interior. When used as materials for lithium-ion batteries, the hollow micro spherical LiFePO₄/C composite exhibits superior discharge capacity (163 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.1 C), good high-rate discharge capacity (118 mAh g⁻¹ at 10 C), and fine cycling stability (99.2% after 200 cycles at 0.1 C). The good electrochemical performances are attributed to a high rate of ionic/electronic conduction and the high structural stability arising from the nanosized primary particles and the micro-sized hollow spherical structure.

In the present work, Cr‐doped ZnO diluted magnetic semiconductor was synthesized by hydrothermal method under pulsed magnetic fields. The samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, VSM, Raman, and XPS techniques. Results demonstrated that Zn ions in the ZnO crystal lattice were partially displaced by Chromium (III) ions. All samples show room temperature ferromagnetism which was enhanced by pulsed magnetic fields. The mechanism of ferromagnetism of Cr‐doped ZnO particles was discussed.