Influence of antimony substitution on structural, magnetic and optical properties of cadmium spinel ferrite

In this present work, antimony-substituted cadmium ferrites with formula CdSbxFe2-xO4 (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5) have been synthesized using the ceramic route. The structural, surface morphological, magnetic and optical properties have been investigated using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer and UV-visible spectroscopy, respectively. XRD confirms the single cubic spinel structure of antimony-substituted cadmium ferrites. The lattice parameter increases due to the replacement of Fe+3 (0.64 angstrom) ions with Sb+3 (0.76 angstrom). FTIR gives the main vibrational band that lies in the range of 400-600 cm(-1) which might be due to the stretching vibration of oxygen and metal ions, confirming the formation of spinel ferrite. The saturation magnetization decreases and coercivity increases as the concentration of non-magnetic antimony ion increases. The optical band gap energy decreases with increasing the concentration of antimony ions.