Investigation of calcium substitution on magnetic and dielectric properties of Mg–Zn nano ferrites

Abstract

In this work, an efficient, cost-effective, and less time-consuming citrate precursor wet chemical approach was employed to prepare a series of Calcium (Ca) doped Magnesium–Zinc ferrite of composition Mg0.4Zn0.6-xCax Fe2O4 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.6). X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis confirmed the spinel structure and nanometric size of the particles. Williamson-Hall (W–H) plots were drawn by making use of XRD data and calculated values of lattice strain were found in the range (3.00 × 10−3 to 9.09 × 10−3) for various concentrations of calcium. The cubic spinel structure of produced ferrites was also verified by three active Raman modes (A1g, Eg, and T2g). In the Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) study, an “S” shape curve shows the low values of coercivity for all the samples in the range 59–105 Oe. For all Ca concentrations, the dielectric loss tangent values were evaluated to be extremely low 0.03 to 0.18 at 1 MHz frequency. The highly magnetic nature and very low value of loss factor make this prepared nanoferrite material best suited for the manufacturing of high-frequency application devices.