Structural and Electrical Studies of MnGdxFe2-xO4 Nanoparticles

Abstract

Manganese ferrite, belonging to the class of the mixed spinel ferrites substituted with various transition metals had been extensively explored because of its desirable properties in a vast area of applications. In recent years, there has been growing interest towards the incorporation of lanthanide ions to the spinel ferrites. As lanthanide ions possess larger ionic radii than ionic radii of iron ions, their substitution may give rise to lattice strain and hence solubility limit. Nevertheless, traces of lanthanide ions substitution in the spinel structures were reported to bring appreciable changes in their properties. Consequently, in the present work, the effect of gadolinium substitution on structural and electrical properties of manganese ferrite was investigated.Gadolinium doped manganese ferrite with the chemical formula MnGdxFe2-xO4 (where x = 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08 and 0.10) had been synthesized by co-precipitation method. XRD studies confirm the spinel structure and the variation in the size and the lattice constant with the gadolinium concentration was studied. SEM studies give the morphological structure of the prepared samples.The electrical properties namely frequency dependence of dielectric constant, dielectric loss tangent and variation of dc-resistivity with gadolinium concentration were investigated and the observed behaviors were discussed.