Synthesis and characterization of Fe0.6Zn0.4Fe2O4 ferrite magnetic nanoclusters using simple thermal decomposition method

• Narrow dispersed nanoclusters Fe–Zn ferrites prepared by a simple thermal decomposition route.
• Increase of solvent content in reaction cause reduce the size of nanoparticles.
• The XRD parameters are refined by the Rietveld method.
• Saturation magnetization increases while coercivity decreases with increasing the particle size of ferrites.

This paper presents experimental results regarding the effect of the quantity of solvent on formation of the Fe–Zn ferrite nanoparticles during thermal decomposition. A ternary system of Fe0.6Zn0.4Fe2O4 has been synthesized by a thermal decomposition method using metal acetylacetonate in high temperature boiling point solvent and oleic acid. The X-ray diffraction study was used to determine phase purity, crystal structure, and average crystallite size of iron–zinc ferrite nanoparticles. The average crystallite size of nanoparticles was increased from 13 nm to 37 nm as a result of reducing the solvent from 30 ml to 10 ml in a synthesis batch. The diameter of particles and morphology of the particles were determined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). Mid and far Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) measurement confirmed monophasic spinel structure of ferrite. Furthermore, the DC magnetic properties of the samples were studied using the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The largest Fe–Zn ferrite nanoparticles exhibited a relatively high saturation magnetization of 96 emu/g. Moreover, Low-field AC susceptibility measurement indicated blocking temperature of nanoparticles around 170–200 K.