  In this work we report a study of the magnetic behavior of ferrimagnetic
oxide CoFe2O4 treated by mechanical milling with different grinding balls. The
cobalt ferrite nanoparticles were prepared using a simple hydrothermal method
and annealed at 500oC. The non-milled sample presented coercivity of about 1.9
kOe, saturation magnetization of 69.5 emu/g, and a remanence ratio of 0.42.
After milling, two samples attained coercivity of 4.2 and 4.1 kOe, and
saturation magnetization of 67.0 and 71.4 emu/g respectively. The remanence
ratio MR/MS for these samples increase to 0.49 and 0.51, respectively. To
investigate the influence of the microstructure on the magnetic behavior of
these samples, we used X-ray powder diffraction (XPD), transmission electron
microscopy (TEM), and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The XPD analysis by
the Williamson-Hall plot was used to estimate the average crystallite size and
strain induced by mechanical milling in the samples.
