Crystal Structures and Morphology of Ni0.4Zn0.6-xCoxFe2O4 Magnetic Nanoparticles: Influence of Co Doping

Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate the crystal structures and morphology of Ni0.4Zn0.6-xCoxFe2O4 magnetic nanoparticles. The samples had been successfully obtained by coprecipitation technique followed by an annealing temperature of 600 °C. The influence of Co doping (x = 0.2 - 0.5) on crystal structures, morphological properties, and functional groups was studied. To begin with, based on the XRD results, all samples were polycrystalline with the spinel cubic structure having a remarkable plane orientation of (311). Moreover, the crystallinity degree of samples experienced a downward performance by the increase of co doping, in which the Ni0.4Zn0.6-xCoxFe2O4 magnetic nanoparticles at x= 0.5 had the lowest crystallinity degree. Regarding the TEM characterization, the Ni0.4Zn0.6-xCoxFe2O4 magnetic nanoparticles at x=0.3 depicted the spherical shape having the average particle diameter of approximately 17.5 nm with slight agglomeration. The increase of Co content on Ni0.4Zn0.6- xCoxFe2O4 causes the increase of particle size. Finally, the existence of functional groups was found at 453.27 cm-1 and 690.52 cm-1 occupied at octahedral and tetrahedral sites, respectively  which confirmed the presence of spinel structure.