Structural, Dielectric, Magnetic and Optical Properties of Cerium Substituted Ni-Zn Mixed Ferrite

Abstract

Ce3+ doped Nickel Zinc ferrites have been synthesised by sol-gel method followed by sintering at 4000C for 4 hours. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns of the prepared samples confirm the formation of single phase cubic spinel structure. Crystallite size of samples doped with Ce are smaller than that of undoped ferrite. The lattice parameters decrease with increase in doping concentration of Ce3+ ion. W-H plots are drawn to study the strain effect in crystal structure.SEM micrographs show formation of spherical shaped nanoparticles. The vibration bands corresponding to metal oxygen vibrations at tetrahedral and octahedral sites in the FTIR spectra are in the reported range suggesting Ce3+occupation on octahedral sites predominantly. The doped samples exhibited lower saturation magnetization. The relative permittivity is found to show a decreasing trend with increase in frequency for all the samples which is characteristic of normal ferrimagnetism. The AC conductivity initially increases with frequency then remains constant over a wide range of frequencies. The UV analyses give the band gap which is less than 2 eV for all the samples which show that these are semiconducting materials.