Structural and microwave properties of Ag-doped strontium hexaferrite

A series of silver-doped strontium hexaferrite with the chemical formula SrAgZFe12-zO19 (0.0 ≤ z ≤ 1.0) were synthesized by the Co-precipitation method. The crystal structure, morphology, and properties of microwave absorption with Ag concentration were studied. The structural analysis by XRD revealed that the samples are crystallized with an M-type hexagonal structure. The values of lattice parameters, the volume of the unit cell, and X-ray density are increasing with the increase of Ag doping. The least values of Rietveld refinements have confirmed a good correlation between experimental and calculated data. Hexagonal plate-like morphology was observed in SEM images and the grain size decreases with Ag doping. Microwave properties have been measured by a vector network analyzer. Real and imaginary parts of electrical permittivity dependence with the frequencies in X-band (8–12 GHz) have been studied. The Reflection loss (RL) was investigated for all samples in X-band frequencies. Maximum RL of − 21.95 dB at 10.0 GHz was observed for the composition of silver, z = 0.4. Improved RL when compared with the pure sample indicating enhanced impedance matching and attenuation constant hence the material can show maximum energy loss for the incident microwaves. The results so obtained are explained based on composition and microwave phenomena. The present studies have confirmed the nature of microwave absorption for Ag-doped strontium hexaferrite.