Curie temperature and magnetic properties of aluminum doped barium ferrite particles prepared by ball mill method

Barium ferrite has attracted considerable interest in the fields of permanent magnets and perpendicular magnetic recording due to its strong uniaxial anisotropy and high Curie temperature (T-c). We prepared aluminum doped barium ferrite ceramics (BaAlxFe12-xO19, 0 <= x <= 6) by the ball mill method. The powder was milled for 96 h, and after forming pellets, annealed for 48 h in air at 1000 degrees C. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) data show that there are only single hexagonal phases in the samples without any impurity phase. The crystal lattice constants, a and c, were calculated by Cohen's method. Both a and c decrease with increasing x, ranging from 0.588 nm and 2.318 nm to 0.573 nm and 2.294 nm, respectively. A Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) and Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) were used to investigate T-c and magnetic properties of BaFe12-xAlxO19. It is found that T-c decreases with increasing x, from 425 degrees C to 298 degrees C. It is also found that the saturated magnetization (4 pi M-s) decreases with increasing x, while the coercivity (H-c) increases with the increase in x. The anisotropy field was also determined from the SQUID measurement. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.