Enhanced room temperature ferromagnetism in Cr and Fe co-doped SnO2 nanoparticles synthesized by sol-gel method

Abstract

The Cr and Fe atoms incorporated into SnO2 matrix by sol-gel method have been studied for enhancement in ferromagnetism and emission properties at room temperature. X-ray diffraction studies confirms the enrichment in crystallinity and pure rutile type tetragonal structure of SnO2 with co-doping of (Cr, Fe). Crystallite size from XRD analysis of co-doped SnO2 nanoparticles was found to decrease from 15 nm for pure SnO2 to 8 nm for (Cr, Fe) co-doped SnO2 nanoparticles. The particle size of prepared nanoparticles was exposed by transmission electron microscopy images and found to be in the range of 5–10 nm. A sharp photoluminescence peak marked at 425 nm with change in peak intensity was observed for all the compositions. Further, room temperature magnetic investigation for pure and modified SnO2 samples was done using Vibrating Sample Magnetometer. The value of saturation magnetization was found to increase from 4 × 10 −3emu/g for Cr doped SnO2 to 6 × 10 −2emu/g for (Cr, Fe) co-doped SnO2 which might be due to presence of oxygen vacancies in the system.