Study of structural and ferromagnetic resonance properties of spinel lithium ferrite (LiFe5O8) single crystals

The effect of B-site cation ordering on the room temperature structural and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) properties of single crystal spinel lithium ferrite (LiFe5O8, LFO) have been investigated. A detailed microstructural analysis is done through X-ray diffraction, polarized Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to examine the effect of post-annealing on the B-site cation ordering. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the as-grown crystal indicates a disordered state of the crystal. However, the annealed sample shows additional superlattice reflections corresponding to the ordered phase. This ordering is further confirmed by Raman spectra and TEM images, which reveal ordering of Li and Fe ions at the octahedral sites contrasting with the relatively high degree of octahedral site disorder in the as-grown crystal. To study the effect of B-site ordering on the magnetic properties and FMR linewidth, vibrating sample magnetometry and broadband FMR measurements have been performed for both the ordered and disordered phases of lithium ferrite. The value of saturation magnetization for both phases is similar to 290 emu/cm(3). A single mode FMR profile is observed for both phases with little distortion. The linewidth characteristics of the ordered and disordered phases of lithium ferrite phases are compared, and it is observed that the linewidth is independent of the cation ordering. Both the phases exhibit a low linewidth (similar to 26 Oe at 30 GHz) and the effective damping parameter for the as-grown and annealed samples is determined to be 0.0021 +/- 0.0001. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.