Evaluation of structural, electrical and magnetic properties of nanosized unary, binary and ternary particles of Fe3O4, SnO2 and TiO2

In the present study, unary, binary and ternary nanoparticles (NPs) of Fe3O4, TiO2 and SnO2 were synthesized using microemulsion assisted precipitation method. For characterization we have used the X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmittance electron microscopy (TEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), UV-Visible and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The measured electrical properties were used to determine the resistance and conduction processes. Two-point probe method was applied for measuring the DC electrical resistivity between 303-723 K, while the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) was used to measure the magnetic properties. The band gap study reveals that a low band gap of Fe3O4 compared to other nanoparticles suggests that it is more reactive than the TiO2 and SnO2 investigated in this study. It was observed that the electrical resistivity decreased with an increase in the temperature, indicated the increase in drift mobility. The activation energy value of ternary nanocomposites (TNC) was found higher than the corresponding unary NPs and binary nanocomposites. As far as the magnetic properties are concerned, Fe3O4 NPs were ferrimagnetic while the others have shown paramagnetic behavior under the applied magnetic field.

Automated summary

In this study, Fe3O4, TiO2 and SnO2 nanoparticles were synthesized and characterized, with a focus on their electrical properties. The research found that Fe3O4 has higher reactivity, with a decrease in resistivity and an increase in drift mobility observed with increasing temperature. Additionally, ternary nanocomposites showed a higher activation energy compared to unary NPs and binary nanocomposites.