Effect of Zn Substitution on the Magnetic Properties of Cobalt Ferrite Nano Particles Prepared Via Sol-Gel Route

Sonal Singhal, Tsering Namgyal, S. Bansal, Kailash Chandra

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DOI: 10.4236/jemaa.2010.26049                

Abstract

Zinc substituted cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CoxZn1-xFe2O4, with x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8 and 1.0) were prepared via sol-gel route and the effect of zinc concentration on saturation magnetization and lattice parameter were investigated. The particle sizes of the as obtained samples were found to be ~10 nm which increases upto ~92 nm on annealing at 1000oC. The frequency bands near 564-588 cm-1 and 425-442 cm-1 are assigned to the tetrahedral and octahedral clusters which confirm the presence of M-O stretching band in ferrites. The unit cell parameter ‘a’ increases linearly with increasing concentration of zinc due to larger ionic radii of Zn2+ ion . It was found that this substitution allows tunable changes in the magnetic properties of cobalt ferrite. Interestingly, saturation magnetization first increases upto x = 0.4 and then decreases for higher Zn substitution, thus tunable changes in magnetic properties of cobalt ferrite are possible. Source of such behaviour could be the variation of exchange interaction between the tetrahedral and the octahedral sites.

Keywords

Nano Particles, Saturation Magnetization, Coercivity, X-Ray Diffraction

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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