Patent ID: 6991741

Claim:
A method of room temperature synthesis of magnetic metal oxide nanoclusters within a matrix of a diblock copolymer, comprising the steps of: a. synthesizing, by a ring opening metathesis polymerization technique, said diblock copolymer including a first polymer block and a second polymer block having a predetermined repeat unit ratio m/n of said first and second polymer blocks wherein said predetermined repeat unit ratio m/n is selected from the group consisting of m having a value of 400 and n within the approximate range 50–250, the diblock copolymer being [NOR] m /[NORCOOH] n and said first polymer block being norbornene (NOR) and said second polymer block being norbornene-dicarboxylic acid (NORCOOH); b. introducing, at room temperature, FeCl 3 and CoCl 2 as precursors into said diblock copolymer to attach FeCl 3 and CoCl 2 molecules to said second polymer block (NORCOOH) of said [NOR] m /[NORCOOH] n diblock copolymer, thereby forming in a liquid phase the diblock copolymer containing said at least one metal; and, c. processing said diblock copolymer by substituting chlorine atoms of said FeCl 3 and CoCl 2 precursors with oxygen atoms to form a plurality of mixed metal oxide CoFe 2 O 4 nanoclusters within said [NOR] m /[NORCOOH] n diblock copolymer, wherein said precursors are introduced prior to a microphase separation of the polymer blocks.