Synthesis and Study of Structural, Morphological and Magnetic Properties of ZnFe2O4 Nanoparticles

Superparamagnetic zinc ferrite (ZnFe2O4) nanoparticles were prepared by a surfactant assisted hydrothermal method and subjected to the heat treatment. The structure, vibrational, morphology, and magnetic properties of synthesized product were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, HR-SEM, and VSM measurements. XRD result confirms the formation of regular spinel structured ZnFe2O4 with space group of Fd3m and an average crystalline size was calculated as 21 nm and 28 nm for the samples annealed in air atmosphere at 300 A degrees C and 600 A degrees C. The HR-SEM image shows that the particles are in spherical shape with small aggregation. A room temperature superparamagnetic behavior was observed for both samples. The saturation magnetization (M (s)) of 12.0 emu/g and 9.10 emu/g were observed for the samples annealed in air atmosphere at 300 A degrees C and 600 A degrees C, respectively.