Gadolinium doping affecting on structural, magnetic and dielectric properties of ZnO nanoparticles

This work presents an investigation on the structural, magnetic and dielectric properties of the pure and gadolinium-doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by co-precipitation method. Three methods including Debye–Scherrer, Williamson–Hall and Rietveld were used to determine the phase and structural parameters of nanoparticles with more accuracy. FESEM images were used to show the morphology of nanoparticles and their size distribution. Structural defects and their concentration, caused by gadolinium doping, were confirmed by Raman spectroscopy measurement. The magnetic behavior of pure and Gd-doped ZnO nanoparticles was studied by measuring the magnetization for all the samples. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of both pure and Gd-doped ZnO nanoparticles were measured in the frequency range of 102–107 Hz.