Improvement of the Coercivity of Cobalt Ferrites Induced by Substitution of Sr2+ Ions for Co2+ Ions

Abstract

Spinel Co1−x Sr x Fe2O4 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3) ferrites have been successfully synthesized by calcining a mixture of oxalates in air. X-ray diffraction study shows that the sample with the concentration of x = 0 has a single spinel phase CoFe2O4 structure and the samples with concentrations of x = 0.1–0.3 have a small amount of foreign phase SrFe12O19 and/or Sr7Fe10O22 along the spinel phase. The lattice parameter of the ferrites at first increases with increasing Sr2+ content, then decreases to x = 0.3 due to the large ionic radius of Sr2+ (0.144 nm) as compared to Co2+ (0.072 nm); for higher doping levels, part of the Sr2+ ions could not enter the tetrahedral (A) and/or octahedral (B) sites but forms a second phase Sr7Fe10O22. The addition of Sr2+ ions decreases the average crystallite size of Co1−x Sr x Fe2O4, which is attributed to the foreign phase Sr7Fe10O22 and/or SrFe12O19 restraining the growth of the Co1−x Sr x Fe2O4 crystallite. The trend of specific saturation magnetization (Ms), remanence (Mr), and anisotropy constant (K eff) decreases with the increase in Sr2+ content, whereas that of coercivity is increased. In this study, Co0.8Sr0.2Fe2O4 obtained at 800°C exhibits the highest coercivity (1699.25 ± 40.78 Oe), and Co0.7Sr0.3Fe2O4 obtained at 900°C exhibits the highest squareness (0.470 ± 0.008).