The magnetic characterization of Fe doped TiO2 semiconducting oxide nanoparticles synthesized by sol-gel method

In this work Fe doped TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized at different Fe/Ti molar ratio from 1% to 5% by sol-gel technique. The post annealing of the samples was carried out at T=400, 600, and 800 °C. HRTEM of the samples revealed that the mean size of the nanoparticles increases from about 8 nm to about 100 nm as the annealing temperature increased. SQUID magnetometry of 1% and 5% Fe doped TiO2 has shown mixed ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases within the crystal while ferromagnetic order with Tc about 350 K was only observed in 5% Fe:TiO2 sample annealed at T=800 °C. The oxygen vacancy mediated ferromagnetic (FM) interaction could be responsible for the observed FM.