Magnetic, Micro-structural, and Optical Properties of Hexaferrite, BaFe12O19 Materials Synthesized by Salt Flux-Assisted Method

Abstract

This paper reports the eco-friendly synthesized BaFe12O19 phase materials by a molten salt flux approach and their experimental findings. The reaction mixture (BaCO3 and Fe2 O 3) annealed with the mixture of salt (NaCl:KCl) flux yielded good quality nanocrystalline hexagonal ferrite BaFe12O19 phase materials. The plate-like hexagonal-shaped BaFe12O19 phase morphology with random particle sizes of ∼370 to 940 nm is seen for the good quality flux-annealed sample. The room-temperature magnetic hysteresis loop of the BaFe12O19 sample exhibits hard ferromagnetic saturation magnetization (M s) of 50.23 emu/g at 15 kOe, and coercive field (H c) is 3500 Oe. The determined energy bandgap (E g) is found to be 3.58 eV for the BaFe12O19 phase material. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectral features confirm the presence of Fe–O and Ba–O bonds in the flux-synthesized BaFe12O19 materials. The photoluminescence (PL) emission peak (∼360 nm) intensity of BaFe12O19 materials varies regardless of annealing temperatures. The different salt flux-synthesized BaFe12O19 materials appear as brown- and dark gray-colored powders that can be applied as a ceramic color pigment due to its high NIR reflectivity.