Modifications of the structure and magnetic properties of ceramic YCrO3 with Fe/Ni doping

In this manuscript, we have investigated the effect of Fe and Ni doping on the structure and magnetic properties of YCr1-xMxO3 ceramics (M = Fe, Ni and x = 0, 0.1). X-ray diffraction analysis of the samples accompanied with, Rietveld refinement suggested no change in the structure upon doping, with structure of the samples being orthorhombic (space group: Pnma). Raman spectroscopic analysis of the samples revealed that doping induced disorder leads to broadening of the certain Raman modes of the system. While, both B-3g(5) and B-1g(3) modes are broadened in Ni and Fe doped samples, in addition Fe doped samples also show broadening of B-1g(4) mode. In doped samples a new mode, A(1g)(3) appears due to the induced lattice disorder. Temperature dependent magnetic measurements suggested a negative value of Curie-Weiss temperature (theta(cw)) indicating that all the samples are antiferromagnetic. However, the Neel temperature (T-N) increased for Fe doping and decreased with Ni doping. These changes in the Neel temperature upon doping can be correlated to the changes in the nearest neighbor and next nearest neighbor exchange interactions.