Au doping effect on the electrical and magnetic properties of Fe3O4 nanoparticles

Impurities free ferromagnetic Fe3O4 was prepared via sol-gel auto-combustion method and then gold was doped with various concentrations 1, 3 and 5 wt.% using conventional deposition-precipitation method. All samples of Fe3O4 with/without Au doping were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The room temperature magnetic hysteresis loops of all the samples were measured using a physical property measuring system (PPMS), and the results showed a ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature. The results obtained confirmed the fabrication of magnetite-gold composite nanoparticles. The results showed that the resistance and the magnetic behavior of the samples decrease sharply with the increase of Au concentration indicating semi-conducting behavior. The saturation magnetization (M-s) of the bare Fe3O4 sample (94.72 emu/g) is much higher than that (66.78 emu/g) of the 5 wt.% Au-doped Fe3O4 sample.