Cation distribution and magnetic properties of nano and bulk CoCrFeO4 ferrite synthesized by glycine-nitrate combustion method

Cost effective and low temperature glycine-nitrate combustion method was used to prepare chromium incorporated nanocrystalline and bulk cobalt ferrite CoCrFeO4. The structural properties and phase identification of the samples were studied using X-ray powder diffraction and the Rietveld analysis. Rietveld refinements revealed that both the samples possess cubic symmetry corresponding to the space group Fd3_m. The refinement results also confirm that the cationic distribution over the tetrahedral and octahedral sites in the spinel lattice of both nano and bulk samples is partially inverse. Cr ions invariably occupy the octahedral (B) site while Co and Fe ions are distributed over both A and B sites. The results of M-H hysteresis curves revealed that the value of saturation magnetization (MS) of nanosample is smaller than that of bulk sample. A much larger value of coercivity (HC) of nanosample (3616G) compared to that of bulk (64G) indicating that they are hard and soft magnets respectively. Magnetization measurements exhibit non-collinear ferrimagnetic structure for the samples.