Structural, thermal, spectral, optical and surface analysis of rare earth metal ion (Gd3+) doped mixed Zn-Mg nano-spinel ferrites

The present work reports the structural, thermal, spectral, optical and surface analysis of rare earth metal ion (Gd3+) doped mixed Zn-Mg nano-spinel ferrites. The samples of Gd3+ doped Zn-Mg nano ferrites with equiamount chemical composition i.e. Zn0.5Mg0.5Fe2-xGdxO4 (0.00 <= x <= 0.10 in step of 0.02) were prepared by selfignited sol-gel route. The variance in the thermal behaviour and spinel phase development with weight loss percentage in the prepared samples was investigated by TG-DTA technique. The powder X-ray diffraction (P-XRD) patterns ensured the nanocrystalline mono-phasic formation and spinel-cubic structure of all the samples. The trend of increment in lattice constant (a) and decrement in crystallite (t) size was observed with the doping of Gd3+ ions. The appearance of two requisite vibrational stretching modes was affirmed by the FT-IR spectral studies. The UV-Vis optical analysis displayed the augmentation in absorbance and drastic decrement in energy band gap value (1.96 eV-1.83 eV) with Gd3+ doping. The photo-luminescent (PL) studies revealed the broad near band-edge emission in visible wavelength range (523 nm-528 nm) for all the samples. The surface parameters investigation was undertaken with the help of BET isotherms recorded by the N-2-physisorption and BJH model. The various surface parameters such as BET surface area, volume and radius of the pores, distribution of the pore sizes etc were construed from the BET data. The enhancement in these surface parameters via Gd3+ doping was noted for all the samples. The outcomes of the present work reflects the influential doping of Gd3+ ions in Zn-Mg nano ferrites, which can be implementable for bio-applications as thermal seeds in magnetic hyperthermia or as contrast enhancer in medical MRI imaging.