Assessment of crystallographic and magnetic phase stabilities of cubic copper ferrite at shocked conditions

Abstract

In recent years, dynamic shock wave-driven investigation carried out on the crystallographic phase stabilities of nano-materials has led to the accumulation of massive explosion of innovations which materialize in identifying the efficient materials so that such kinds of assessments are highly required before putting them into practical applications. Surprisingly, at shocked conditions, most of the materials are found to have undergone phase transition or a variety of changes have been observed in their stability as well as efficiency. Hence, device engineers are highly focused on the search of high shock-resistant materials for applications point of view especially for aerospace, defense, and military applications. In the present context, we have chosen one of the most familiar divalent metal ferrites of cubic copper ferrite nanocrystalline material (CuFe2O4 NPs) for the analysis of structural stability and the results have been screened by X-ray diffraction (XRD) as well as ultra-violet diffuse reflectance spectroscopic (UV-DRS) techniques. Magnetic phase stability has been evaluated by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Interestingly, the title ferrite does not experience any crystallographic and magnetic phase transition even though it has polymorphic nature and variety of magnetic states. Therefore, it could be confirmed that CuFe2O4 NPs have considerable shock-resistant behavior for both crystallographic and magnetic phases. The results are discussed in the upcoming sections.