Structural and optical properties of gadolinium doped-magnetite nano-crystal for photocatalytic application

Abstract

Doped ferrite materials offer a combination of enhanced magnetic properties, multifunctionality, higher Curie temperature, biocompatibility, and potential energy applications. Their unique characteristics make them appealing for research in diverse fields, including materials science, electronics, biomedical engineering, and energy technology. In present work, Gadolinium-doped magnetite samples are synthesized following the co-precipitation method. The effects of doping on the structural and optical properties of Fe3O4 are studied. Structural parameters of the samples such as cell parameters, cell volume crystalline size, x-ray density, and average micro-strain are calculated from the analysis of x-ray diffraction (XRD) data via Rietveld refinement method. An increase in crystalline size and cell volume is observed while a reduction in micro-strain is observed with increase in doping concentration. The particle size estimated from FE-SEM data ranges from 9 to 16 nm and is in good agreement with XRD data and confirms the formation of nanoscopic phase of the particles. The presence of characteristic peaks concerned with tetrahedral and octahedral site vibrations in the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy data approve the formation of inverse spinel structure. The distribution of Gd in the samples is determined with Energy dispersive x-ray analysis. The optical studies show that the direct and indirect band gaps decrease from 4.07 to 3.95 eV and 3.79–3.65 eV, respectively. These values of band gap are indicated the potential use of the synthesized nanoparticles for photocatalytic application.