The impact of highly paramagnetic Gd3+ cations on structural, spectral, magnetic and dielectric properties of spinel nickel ferrite nanoparticles

Abstract

In this work, fabrication of Gd3+ substituted nickel spinel ferrite (NiGdxFe2-xO4) nanoparticles was carried out via co-precipitation route. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) confirmed the spinel cubic structure of NiGdxFe2-xO4 nanoparticles. XRD data also facilitated to determine the divalent and trivalent metal cations distribution at both A and B sites of the ferrite lattice. Site radii, hopping and bond lengths were also calculated from XRD data. The spectral studies elucidated the formation of cubic spinel ferrite structure as well as stretching vibrations of M–O (metal–oxygen) bond at A and B sites of ferrites, represented by two major bands υ1 and υ2 respectively. FESEM analysis confirmed the irregular morphology of NiGdxFe2-xO4 nanoparticles. EDX spectrographs estimated the elemental compositions. The dielectric attributes were explained on the basis of the Debye-relaxation theory and Koop’s phenomenological model. At higher applied frequencies (AC) no prominent dielectric loss was observed. Magnetic parameter variations can be attributed to the substitution of the rare earth cations having larger ionic radii as compared to the radii of Fe3+ ions. Moreover, spin canting, magneto-crystalline anisotropy and exchange energy of electrons also helped in magnetic evaluation. Due to small coercivity values NiGdxFe2-xO4 nanoparticles can be employed significantly in high-frequency data storage devices.

Keywords

• Spinel ferrites
• Co-precipitation
• Ionic radii
• Saturation magnetization
• Magnetic moment
• Dielectric properties