Effect of particle size on structural, magnetic and dielectric properties of manganese substituted nickel ferrite nanoparticles

• An auto-combustion method support to prepare less size of particles.
• The excellent magnetic properties obtained by as-burnt samples.
• Nature of the ferrite was affected with increasing annealing temperature.

Mn substituted NiFe2O4 ferrite nanoparticles (Mn–NiFe2O4) were synthesized by the auto-combustion method. Their actions were carried out at different fuel ratios (50%, 75% and 100%). The nanoparticles have been investigated by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The average crystallite size of the synthesized and annealed samples was between 25 and 75 nm, which were found to be dependent on both fuel ratio and annealing temperatures. However, lattice parameters, interplanar spacing and grain size were controlled by varying the fuel ratio. Magnetic characterizations of the nanoparticles were carried out using a vibrating sample magnetometer at room temperature. The saturation magnetization was computed and found to lie between 6 emu/g and 57 emu/g depending on the particle size of the studied sample. The coercivity was found to exhibit non-monotonic behavior with the particle size. Such behavior can be accounted for by the combination between surface anisotropy and thermal energies. The value of dielectric constant and dielectric loss was found to exhibit almost linear dependence on the particle size.