Structural, elemental, optical and magnetic study of Fe doped ZnO and impurity phase formation

We have prepared a series of (ZnO)1−x(Fe2O3)x≤0.10 bulk samples with various concentrations of Fe dopant by ball milling and investigated their structural, compositional, optical and magnetic properties by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectrometer and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. Information about different impurity phases was obtained through Rietveld refinements of XRD data analysis. XPS results showed different valence states (Fe2+ and Fe3+) supported by shaking satellite peaks in samples. With increasing Fe doping percentage, the crystal quality deteriorated and a shift of E2 low band (characteristic of ZnO) has been observed in Raman spectra. Energy band gap estimated from reflectance UV–vis spectroscopy showed shift for all bulk samples. The magnetic behavior was examined using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), indicating ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature (300 K). The effective magnetic moment per Fe atom decreases with increase in doping percentage which indicates that ferromagnetic behavior arises from the substitution of Fe ions in the ZnO lattice.