Impact of gadolinium doping into the frustrated antiferromagnetic lithium manganese oxide spinel
Bhagirath Saini,
R. Krishnapriya,
Devika Laishram,
Manoj K. Singh,
Rahul Singhal,
Sateesh Bandaru,
Rakesh K. Sharma
Affiliations
Bhagirath Saini
Sustainable Materials and Catalysis Research Laboratory (SMCRL), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan 342037, India
R. Krishnapriya
Sustainable Materials and Catalysis Research Laboratory (SMCRL), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan 342037, India; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, College of Engineering, United Arab Emirate University, Al Ain 15551, UAE
Devika Laishram
Sustainable Materials and Catalysis Research Laboratory (SMCRL), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan 342037, India; University College Dublin, School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, Engineering Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Manoj K. Singh
Centre of Material Sciences, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj 211002, India
Rahul Singhal
Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT 06050, USA
Sateesh Bandaru
College of Materials and Environmental Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China; Corresponding author
Rakesh K. Sharma
Sustainable Materials and Catalysis Research Laboratory (SMCRL), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan 342037, India; Corresponding author
Summary: Cubic spinel LiMn2O4 (LMO) are promising electrode materials for advanced technological devices owing to their rich electrochemical properties. Here, a series of Gd3+-doped LiMn2O4 were synthesized using a simple one-step sol-gel synthesis, and a systematized study on the effect of increasing Gd3+ concentration on magnetic properties is conferred. The Raman and density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the synthesized materials were correlated with the magnetic properties; we observed a high coercivity value for the doped LMO compared to pristine LMO, which scales down from 0.57T to 0.14T with an increase in Gd concentration. The samples exhibited paramagnetic (at 300K) to antiferromagnetic (at 5K) transition and variation in the magnetic moment due to the replacement of Mn+2 or Mn+3 ion by Gd+3 ion from the octahedral 16d lattice site. The observed phase transitions in the hysteresis curve below the Neel temperature (TN) at 5K are found to be due to the superexchange mechanism.
