Impact of Mg2+ Ion on the Structural, Morphological, Optical, Vibrational, and Magnetic Behavior of Mg:ZnAl2O4 Spinel

In this work, Magnesium-doped zinc aluminate nanoparticles are synthesized using microwave combustion technique by employing L-alanine as fuel. The incorporation of Mg2+ ions plays a pivotal role in influencing the optical, structural, and magnetic properties of zinc aluminate nanoparticles. The synthesized nanoparticle are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM).The XRD patterns confirmed the formation of single-phase cubic spinel structure of ZnAl2O4 (gahnite). The average crystallite sizes estimated from Debye-Scherrer is found to be in the range of 6 to 12 nm. HR-SEM images revealed the spherical morphology with uniform distributions. The optical bandgap of the synthesized nanoparticles is found to be in the range of 5.45 eV-5.76 eV. Magnetic measurement reveals that pure and doped zinc aluminate nanoparticles have superparamagnetic nature. These obtained results of Zn1-xMgxAl2O4 (0 <= x <= 0.5) are found to be well suited for optoelectronics, magnetic, and catalytic applications.