Effect of 0.5Li2O-0.5K2O-2B2O3 glass additive on optical and magnetic properties of YFeO3 nanomaterials

The orthorhombic crystal structure of YFeO3 (YFO) is well known for photocatalysis and magneto-optical application, as a result, continued efforts are being made to further improve the physical properties (optical and magnetic) of this material via doping of rare earth (more expensive) elements. In this context, we attempted to improve the physical properties of YFO by adding the 0.5Li(2)O-0.5K(2)O-2B(2)O(3) (LKBO) as a glass additive (inexpensive). The X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) studies show that the maximum 0.5 wt% of LKBO glasses was incorporated into YFO without exhibiting any impurity or secondary phase. FWHM of the main intensity XRD peak (hkl = 121) was reduced from 0.173 to 0.145 when LKBO glasses rose from 0 to 1.0 wt%. The existence of each element present in YFOLKBO-0 and YFOLKBO-0.5 samples was confirmed through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The average particle size of YFO and 0.5 wt% LKBO added YFO samples were found to be similar to 395 and similar to 794 nm respectively, which was observed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. The calculated optical band gap was decreased from 2.23 to 2.18 eV with an increase of LKBO content from 0 to 1 wt% in the YFO nanomaterials. The maximum magnetization value of 0.5 wt% LKBO added YFO material reached 4.15 emu/g, similar to 1.2 times higher than pure YFO materials. In conclusion, these findings (0.5 wt% LKBO glasses added into the YFO) bode well for future production of low-cost YFO materials for magnetic applications.