Magnetic properties of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 spinels prepared by wet chemical methods

We present the magnetic properties of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 spinels prepared by the sol-gel and pyrolysis techniques. Structural properties show that the material synthesized by pyrolysis method exhibit an ordered spinel structure. Characterization methods include SQUID magnetometry and ESR spectroscopy. Magnetic measurements have evidenced the ferromagnetic ordering below T-c = 129 K in LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4. Results show that actually no impurity phase is detected in LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4, thus the ferrimagnetic behavior is attributed to an intrinsic property of this material. The magnetic order in this case is trivially a collinear ferrimagnetic ordering in which both the Ni sublattice and the Mn sublattice are ferromagnetic. ESR measurements show a two-component signal with a complex shape. The dominant band is assigned to Mn4+ ions that are the only paramagnetic entities in this compound. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.