Influence of rare earth Ce3+ on structural, electrical and magnetic properties of Sr2+ based W-type hexagonal ferrites

A series of single phase W-type Sr3−xCexFe16O27 (x=0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10) hexagonal ferrites prepared by the Sol–Gel method was sintered at 1050 °C for 5 h. The X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that all the samples belong to the family of W-type hexagonal ferrites. The c/a ratio falls in the range of W-type hexagonal ferrites. The grain size was measured by SEM varies from 0.7684 to 0.4366 μm which shows that the Ce3+ substituted samples have smaller grain size than pure ferrite Sr3Fe16O27 which results from the difference in ionic radii of Ce3+ (1.034 Å) and Sr2+ (1.12 Å). The room temperature resistivity of the present samples varies from 6.5×108 to 272×108 Ω-cm. The coercivity increases from 1370 to 1993 Oe which is consistent with the decrease in grain size. The coercivity values indicate that the present samples fall in the range of hard ferrites. The large value of Hc may be due to domain wall pinning at the grain boundaries.