Effect of chromium substitution on crystal and lattice structure of soft manganese zinc ferrites

Abstract

Chromium-doped manganese–zinc ferrite samples were prepared by solid-state reaction route to probe the effect of chromium ion on the crystal and lattice structure of mixed manganese–zinc ferrite. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that Mn[Formula: see text]Zn[Formula: see text]Cr[Formula: see text]Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text] = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5) ferrite has polycrystalline cubic spinel structure with some secondary phase of [Formula: see text]–Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text]. The Raman spectra reveal four Raman active phonon modes in the measurement range of 200–750 cm[Formula: see text] with small shift in Raman modes towards higher wave number. The average particle size for Mn[Formula: see text]Zn[Formula: see text]Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text] is found to be 37.28 nm which reduces to 33.64 nm for Mn[Formula: see text]Cr[Formula: see text]Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text]. As the ion doping of chromium increases, the modes of vibration are found to shift towards higher wavelength and blueshift is attributed to the higher ionic radii of Cr[Formula: see text] as compared to Zn[Formula: see text].