Impact of Co2+ Substitution on Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of CoxZn1-xFe2O4 Nanoparticles

W S Mohamed; Meshal Alzaid; Mohammed S M Abdelbaky; Zakariae Amghouz; Santiago García-Granda; Ahmed M Abu-Dief

doi:10.3390/nano9111602

Impact of Co²⁺ Substitution on Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of Co_xZn_1-xFe₂O₄ Nanoparticles

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2019 Nov 11;9(11):1602. doi: 10.3390/nano9111602.

Authors

W S Mohamed^{1

2}, Meshal Alzaid¹, Mohammed S M Abdelbaky³, Zakariae Amghouz⁴, Santiago García-Granda³, Ahmed M Abu-Dief^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Physics Department, College of Science, Jouf University, Al-Jouf, Sakaka P.O. Box 2014, Saudi Arabia.
² Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Sohag University, 82524 Sohag, Egypt.
³ Departments of Physical and Analytical Chemistry, and Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, University of Oviedo-CINN, 33006 Oviedo, Spain.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Oviedo, Campus Universitario, 33203 Gijón, Spain.
⁵ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Sohag University, 82524 Sohag, Egypt.
⁶ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Taibah University, Madinah P.O. Box 344, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

In the present work, we synthesized Co_xZn_1-xFe₂O₄ spinel ferrite nanoparticles (x= 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) via the precipitation and hydrothermal-joint method. Structural parameters were cross-verified using X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and electron microscopy-based techniques. The magnetic parameters were determined by means of vibrating sample magnetometry. The as-synthesized Co_xZn_1-xFe₂O₄ nanoparticles exhibit high phase purity with a single-phase cubic spinel-type structure of Zn-ferrite. The microstructural parameters of the samples were estimated by XRD line profile analysis using the Williamson-Hall approach. The calculated grain sizes from XRPD analysis for the synthesized samples ranged from 8.3 to 11.4 nm. The electron microscopy analysis revealed that the constituents of all powder samples are spherical nanoparticles with proportions highly dependent on the Co doping ratio. The Co_xZn_1-xFe₂O₄ spinel ferrite system exhibits paramagnetic, superparamagnetic and weak ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature depending on the Co²⁺ doping ratio, while ferromagnetic ordering with a clear hysteresis loop is observed at low temperatures (5K). We concluded that replacing Zn²⁺ ions with Co²⁺ ions changes both the structural and magnetic properties of ZnFe₂O₄ nanoparticles.

Keywords: CoxZn1-xFe2O4 nanoparticles; electron microscopies; ferromagnetic ordering; hydrothermal method; magnetic parameters.

Abstract

Grants and funding