Structural, magnetic and dielectric properties of Zr-Cd substituted strontium hexaferrite (SrFe12O19) nanoparticles

Strontium hexaferrite nanoparticles with nominal composition SrZrxCdxFe12-2xO19 (for x = 0.0-0.6) with step increment of 0.2 have been synthesized by the chemical co-precipitation technique. XRD, hysteresis loops measurements and LCR meter were employed to evaluate the structure, magnetic and dielectric properties of SrZrxCdxFe12-2xO19 nanomaterials. The XRD analysis confirms the single phase and various parameters such as lattice constants (a and c), cell volume and crystallite size have also been calculated from the XRD data. The crystallite size is found in the range of 28-39 nm. The magnetic properties such as saturation magnetization, remanence and coercivity are calculated from the hysteresis loops. Values of saturation magnetization are found to increase up to the substitution level of x = 0.0-0.2 while that of remanence and coercivity decrease continuously with increase in Zr-Cd concentration. The dielectric properties as a function of frequency under normal conditions were also measured in the frequency range of 500 Hz to 1 MHz. The dielectric constants and tangent of dielectric loss factor remained within the range of 3347-30 and 11-0.24, respectively. The decrease in coercivity while increase in saturation magnetization confirms that the synthesized materials are suitable for applications in high-density recording media. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.