Synthesis, structural, magnetic properties and DC electrical resistivity of Cr3+ substituted Mg-Ni ferrites

Abstract

The solid-state reaction route synthesised Mg0.5Ni0.5Fe2-xCrxO4 (x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6) ferrites. The XRD, SEM, FT-IR spectroscopy, VSM, and DC electrical resistivity measurements were used to measure the synthesized materials' crystal structure, microstructure, crystallite size and magnetic and resistivity properties, respectively. XRD analysis confirms the materials' efficient synthesis and improvement of crystallite sizes in a single-phase cubic spinel structure. The lattice constant in the ranges (8.423–8.362 Å) and crystallite size (45.02–26.51 nm) were measured and are shown to decrease when chromium ions increase. SEM analysis was done to understand the morphology and grain structure. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy was used to confirm the inherent vibrational absorption bands for the tetrahedral and octahedral sites of the spinel structure. With the addition of chromium ions, it has been observed that the saturation magnetization in the ranges of (34.58–62.15 emu/g), remanent magnetization (3.68–15.24 emu/g), and coercivity (145.21–155.13 Oe) were calculated with an increases pattern with the concentration level of the dopant. The M−H curves were drawn using VSM at room temperature for all compositions, and the hysteresis parameters were calculated. At a surface area of 15 KOe, hysteresis loops in prepared samples exhibit high saturation, and loops are highly symmetrical. The conventional semiconducting behavior of spinel ferrites is provided by the DC resistivity assessed using the two-probe technique, which shows a decrease in resistivity as temperature increases.