Chemical Synthesis of Rare Earth (La, Gd) Doped Cobalt Ferrite and a Comparative Analysis of Their Magnetic Properties

Abstract

Lanthanum (La) and gadolinium (Gd) doped cobalt ferrite nanoparticles are synthesized using a soft chemical approach. The analysis of these ferrites using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows that lattice spacing decreases in the doped ferrite samples. Magnetization data indicates towards the decrease of saturation magnetisation but increase in coercivity with doping. Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements at room temperature indicate increased occupancy of trivalent cations at tetrahedral site. The addition of rare earth dopants reduces the hard-magnetic character of cobalt ferrite.

Screening of Mono-, Di- and Trivalent Cationic Dopants for the Enhancement of Thermal Behavior, Kinetics, Structural, Morphological, Surface and Magnetic Properties of CoFe2O4-SiO2 Nanocomposites

“…The properties of CoFe 2 O 4 can be easily tailored as they depend on the synthesis method, composition, doping ions, and particle size distribution [4,10,11]. The properties of CoFe 2 O 4 doped with divalent (Mg 2+ , Cu 2+ , Ni 2+ , Zn 2+ , Mn 2+ ) and trivalent (La 3+ , Ru 3+ , Gd 3+ , Al 3+ ) ions were extensively studied [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], while the doping with monovalent ions received less attention. The most common monovalent ion for ferrite doping is Ag + due to its antibacterial activity against different pathogens [19].…”