Analysis of Cd2+ and In3+ ions doping on microstructure, optical, magnetic and mo¨ssbauer spectral properties of sol-gel synthesized BaM hexagonal ferrite based nanomaterials

Precise studies of cadmium and indium doped barium hexagonal ferrites having chemical composition Ba0.7Nd0.3Cdx/2Inx/2Fe12-xO19 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3) have been performed by sol-gel auto-combustion method in which ethylene glycol was used as a gel precursor. The structural, morphological, optical, elemental and magnetic properties have been studied by using various techniques like XRD, FESEM, FTIR, EDS and VSM. The XRD patterns shows characteristic (110), (008), (107), (114), (108), (203), (205), (206), (1011), (300), (217), (2011), (220), (2014) peaks along with the presence of secondary phase confirming the formation of hexagonal structure with an average crystallite size of 43–59 nm. FESEM supports the formation of hexagonal, dense and agglomerated nanoparticles. The Vibronic study using infrared radiation was carried by FTIR analysis reveal the various configuration modes with hexagonal symmetry of prepared nanoparticles. The magnetic measurements have been studied at room temperature indicates that saturation magnetization (Ms) and magnetic moment (nB) found to be of range 40–86 emu/g and 7.97–17.23 μB. The precise magnetic studies made it possible to reveal that saturation magnetization (Ms) increases with the cadmium and indium concentration for x = 0.1 and after that it decreases for x = 0.2, 0.3 which may be due to the difference in the magnetic moments of Cd, In and Fe ions. Due to high value of saturation magnetization (Ms), it can be used for applications in the field of high density recording storage devices and also, this magnetic change has been explained on the basis of exchange interactions. The room temperature Mo¨ssbauer spectra of all the nano-sized materials shows normal Zeeman splitting consisting of six merged line patterns which indicates the formation of ferromagnetic phase that supports the magnetic properties. Keywords: Barium neodymium nanoparticles, Sol-gel, Structural and optical analysis, Magnetic measurements, Mo¨ssbauer spectr