Temperature dependence of the structural, magnetic, and magnetostrictive properties of zinc-substituted cobalt ferrite

Abstract

This study presents the effects of substitution of Zn2+ for Co2+ at low concentrations and the effects of temperature variations on the structural, magnetic, and magnetostrictive properties of cobalt ferrite. Although the Zn-substituted cobalt ferrite samples, Co1-xZn xFe2O4 (x = 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.09, and 0.17) did not show observable changes in crystal structure, the magnetic and magnetostrictive properties were strongly affected. The variation in magnetic susceptibility with composition can be related to the variations in magnetization, coercive field and magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The changes in coercive field were found to be primarily due to the variations in the magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The effect of magnetocrystalline anisotropy on magnetization was stronger at lower cation concentration than at higher concentrations. The decrease in magnetization around 150 K is attributed to the high magnetocrystalline anisotropy at low temperatures which prevented the maximum applied field of 4 MA/m from causing the saturation of magnetization in the samples. Because the magnetocrystalline anisotropy was determined with the magnetization data using the Law of Approach to saturation magnetization, the reliability of the result was found to decrease with decrease in temperature. Peak-to-peak magnetostriction amplitude and the strain sensitivity decreased with increase in Zn substitution. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.