Preparations and tailoring of structural, magnetic properties of rare earths (REs) doped nanoferrites for microwave high frequency applications

Rare earths (Res) doped Mn spinel nanoferrites with nominal composition MnR0.2Fe1.8O4 (REs = Tb, Pr, Ce, Y and Gd) were synthesized using sol gel method. FTIR, XRD and FESEM were employed to evaluate the structure, phase, vibrational bands, morphology, grain size and microstructure respectively. VSM was employed to investigate the magnetic features of the Mn nanoferrite and REs doped Mn nanoferrites. XRD confirmed the singlephase cubic structure of Mn nanoferrite whereas tetragonal phase was observed for all REs doped Mn nanoferrites. Unit cell software was used to determine the structural features such as lattice parameter, cell volume, 'da', 'db', 'dc' and 'dv' respectively. FTIR results demonstrated the absorption peaks of Mn and REs doped Mn ferrite at 647-674 cm(-1). FESEM results depicted the irregular shapes of the particles with large agglomerations in the prepared samples. The grain size evaluated by LIM (line intercept method) found in the range of 94 to 213 nm respectively. Saturation magnetization was increased from 1.332 to 38.097 emu/g whereas remanence was increased from 1.096 to 25.379 emu/g respectively. In addition, other magnetic parameters such as initial permeability, magnetic anisotropy and magnetic moments were also increased. Moreover, Y-K angles showed significant response with REs doping in Mn ferrites. Furthermore, high frequency response and switching field distribution (SFD) of Mn ferrite and REs doped Mn ferrites were also determined. It is found that Y doped Mn ferrite depicted better high frequency and SFD response as compared to Mn ferrite and REs doped Mn ferrites. The coercivity of all these pure Mn ferrite and rare earth's substituted Mn ferrites (425-246 Oe) was higher as compared to the pure Mn and yttrium substituted Mn ferrite (107-217 Oe. Therefore, it was suggested that Y doped Mn ferrite was more suitable candidate for switching, and high frequency absorption applications in microwave regime.