Magnetic Properties of CuCr2Se4 and CuCr1.5Ti0.5Se4

CuCr2Se4 is a potentially attractive versatile material, from the point of view of spintronics application. It shows characteristics of a ferromagnetic conductor at room temperature and with suitable doping it is proposed to show half-metallicity. With an aim to understand the effect of doping at Cr-site by a non-magnetic ion, we carried out investigation of magnetic and crystal structure properties of polycrystalline CuCr2Se4 and CuCr1.5Ti0.5Se4 spinel. These materials were prepared by solid state synthesis and characterized using room temperature powder XRD and measurement of magnetic properties. The XRD patterns were analyzed using Rietveld technique and lattice constants were estimated. Formation of a small amount of Cr3Se4 phase was identified from the XRD profiles. However, the magnetic properties do not seem to be affected much by it. Compared to parent compound, CuCr2Se4, the ferromagnetic Curie temperature TC in CuCr1.5Ti0.5Se4 was found to decrease to 208 K. But its magnetic moment (mu(B)/f.u.) determined from the saturation magnetization value measured at 5 K, differed only slightly from that of CuCr2Se4. Our preliminary results are presented here.