Optical and magnetic properties of nano-crystalline orthoferrite holmium synthesized using egg-white precursor

This study reports the first holmium orthoferrite nanocrystallite synthesized via the sol-gel method using egg white (EW), through the hydrolysis of Ho (III) and Fe (III) cations in boiling water (t degrees > 95 degrees C). The holmium orthoferrite was characterized by TG-DSC, PXRD, EDX, TEM, UV-Vis, and VSM techniques. Single-phase HoFeO3 was formed after calcination of the precursor at different temperatures up to 800 degrees C for 60 min. The PXRD and TEM results showed that the average crystallite sizes of all HoFeO3 samples were in the range of 20-30 nm. The obtained HoFeO3 nanopowders have strong absorption in the UV region (lambda = 200 divided by 400 nm) and visible region (lambda = 400 divided by 600 nm). Compared to previous studies, the holmium orthoferrite synthesized in this work exhibited larger magnetic parameters (H-c, M-r, and M-s), but a lower band gap energy value. These findings demonstrate their potential use not only as photocatalysts, but also as magnetic materials. [GRAPHICS] .