Influence of Cr3+ substitution on structural, morphological, optical, and magnetic properties of nickel ferrite thin films

Abstract

The NiFe2−xCrxO4 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0 in the step of x = 0.2) thin films have been synthesized using chemical spray deposition technique. The effects of Cr3+ content on the structural, morphological, optical and magnetic properties of these thin films have been investigated. The X-ray diffraction patterns confirmed single phase cubic spinel structure with space group of Fd-3m. The lattice constant decreases with increases Cr3+ concentration obeying Vegard’s law. The functional studied of Cr3+ substitution NiFe2O4 thin films were formed two major transmission bands, high-frequency band (ν1) around at 665 cm−1 is due to intrinsic vibrations of (A) site and the low frequency band (ν2) around 428 cm−1 is due to [B] site, respectively. Surface morphology was investigated in terms of root mean square roughness, average roughness (Ra), surface kurtosis and surface skewness of Ni–Cr ferrite thin films. The energy band gap for allowed direct electronic transition found to be in the range of 2.75–3.02 eV with Cr3+ content. According to VSM results show that, the saturation magnetizations of the thin film samples were found to be in the range of 234.12–46.65 emu/cc. The Cr3+ concentration increases with a reduction in hysteresis losses as well as slight reduction in the saturation magnetization.