Structural and magnetic properties of calcium doped nickel ferrite nanoparticles by co-precipitation method

•Ca doped Nickel ferrite nanoparticles was synthesized by Co precipitation method.•Its structural, morphological and magnetic behavior was studied.•Characterized by XRD, FESEM, EDX, FTIR, ICP and VSM.•Saturation magnetization increases for x = 0.2 after that decreases.

It is a truism that a sequence of calcium doped nickel ferrite (with x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0) nanoparticles are combined by co-precipitation technique. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) scrutinize the formation of single-phase inverse spinel structure in all the compositions. The lattice framework increases with the increase in calcium concentration and it exhibits the development of unit cell. Crystallite size in the range of 22–34 nm is viewed and also augmented the level of calcium. The elemental composition of pure and calcium doped nickel ferrite has been procured from Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). It is interesting to note that the substitution of calcium increasingly exerts influence on the magnetic characteristics. These observations paved the way for the room temperature of magnetization measurements. The saturation magnetization and the experimental value of magnetic moment are noticed to enlarge initially up to x = 0.2, and then decrease incessantly with increase in the Ca content x. The increase and the decrease of saturation magnetization have widely been expounded by Neel's collinear two-sublattice model and Yafet–Kittel (Y–K) three-sub lattice model.