Magnetic and electrical investigations of low dimensional Co0.5Zn0.5−xCuxFe2O4 nano ferrites

Abstract

In this present work, low dimensional Co0.5Zn0.5−xCuxFe2O4 (x = 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05) (CZCFO) ferrite nanoparticles are engineered by modified sol-gel method, with citric acid (C6H8O7) as a fuel. Here we investigate the room temperature structure, magnetic, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electrical properties of CZCFO nanoparticles. The X-ray diffraction patterns of CZCFO samples, confirm the formation of pure a cubic structure, Fd-3m space group, and Rietveld refinement technique used to extract the atomic level structural information for all the compositions. Debye Scherer’s equation is used to estimate the crystallite size and micro strain, the obtained values are around 8–13 nm and 0.6246 × 10−3 respectively. The particle surface morphology was examined by Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), showing aggregated grains with a sponge-like structure. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) technique confirms the presence of functional groups and the formation of the spinel structure for all the samples. Room temperature M-H loops indicate the ferrimagnetic nature for all the samples and it is noticed that increasing saturation magnetization (Ms) and coercivity (Hc) for increasing dopant. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) technique is used to estimate the elements with an electron state of atoms within the material and determine the valance states at respected octahedral and tetrahedral sites. The frequency-dependent dielectric constant and loss tangent imply that, significantly decreases as increasing frequency and later, becomes almost linear. This typical nature reflects the Maxwell–Wagner type of polarization by Koop's theory. Additionally, room temperature complex impedance spectroscopy reveals the non-Debye type of relaxation and the Cole-Cole plot shows the semi-arc nature. Relative permeability studies at room temperature remark the decay in all samples.