Investigation of structural, thermal, magnetic, and dielectric properties of Yb+3 doped nickel cobalt ferrite nanomaterial for electro-magnetic applications

Herein, we report the synthesis of ytterbium (Yb) (with concentration x = 0.01, 0.015, 0.02, 0.025 and 0.03) doped in to nickel cobalt ferrite (NCYFO: Yb_xNi_0.5Co_0.5Fe_2-xO₄) nanoparticles at temperature 500 °C with phase pure spinel using solution combustion technique. The phase purity and effect of doping on NCYFO complex oxide on structural, thermal, magnetic and dielectric properties have been determined by various characterization techniques. The FTIR data reveal that strong metal oxide linkages can be observed in the tetrahedral and octahedral sites at wavenumbers 460 to 410 cm⁻¹ and 595 to 540 cm⁻¹. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirmed the spinel structure. The crystallite sizes and lattice parameters were estimated to be in the range of 31 to 22 nm and 8.32 to 8.35 Å, respectively. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) study confirmed that the increase in Yb concentration results in accumulation of Yb in the grain boundaries of NCYFO in the form of Yb₂O₃. The thermal stability of nanoparticles were investigated using TGA/DSC method. Transmission Electron microscopy (TEM) studies and Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) used to study the particle size distribution and elemental composition within the nanomaterial. In addition, the dielectric properties, such as, dielectric constant and dielectric loss were investigated for all the NCYFO nanomaterial. The saturation magnetization of the NCYFO is determined using vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) analysis and is maximum for x = 0.03 (Ms = 97.56 emu/g) sample. The high magnetic behaviour and better dielectric properties of the NCYFO nanomaterials are suitable for electro-magnetic applications.