Structural characterization and ferromagnetic behavior of Fe-doped TiO2 powder by high-energy ball milling

Fe-doped TiO2 powder was prepared by high-energy ball milling, using TiO2 Degussa P-25 and α-Fe powders as the starting materials. The structure and magnetic properties of the Fe-doped TiO2 powder were studied by X-ray diffraction, 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy and vibrating sample magnetometer. The Reitveld refinement of XRD revealed that ball milling not only triggered incorporation of Fe in TiO2 lattice but also induced the phase transformation from anatase to rutile in TiO2 and consequently the milled Fe-doped TiO2 powder contained only rutile.57Fe Mössbauer effect measure showed that Fe atoms existed in Fe2+ and Fe3+ state, which were assigned to the solid solution FexTi1−xO2. The magnetization measurements indicated that the milled Fe-doped TiO2 powder was ferromagnetic above room temperature. The ferromagnetism in our milled Fe-doped TiO2 powder seemingly does not come from Fe and iron oxides particles/clusters but from the Fe-doped TiO2 powder matrices.