Abstract
In this paper, we report the existence of defect induced room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) in (La, Gd) co-doped SnO2 nanostructures prepared by sol-gel method. The single phase rutile tetragonal structure (P42/mnm) of SnO2 was found to remain intact with doping as confirmed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) patterns with the average crystallite size in the range of 14–10 nm. Diffuse reflectance UV–vis reveals an increase in band gap energy of SnO2 on La and Gd doping. Further, all the SnO2 samples shows visible Photoluminescence (PL) emission in the region 424–525 nm associated with vacancies/defects. Further, the observed RTFM in doped SnO2 nanostructures is mainly due to presence of oxygen vacancies which is also supported by PL measurements.
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