Effect of rare earth (Sm3+) substitution in mixed Ni-Zn-Co ferrites: Structural, magnetic, and DC electrical resistivity studies

[Display omitted] •Spinel-structured Ni0.4Zn0.35Co0.25Fe2-xSmxO4 ferrite materials were successfully synthesized by employing the solid-state reaction technique and a sintering temperature of 1050 °C for 4 h.•As the concentration of the dopant increased, the crystallite size (D) was found to increase accordingly, ranging from 25.25 to 40.56 nm.•FTIR spectra validated the characteristics tetrahedral and octahedral sites stretching bond vibrations found in the spinel.•The saturation magnetization of the ferrite samples exhibited a tendency to decrease in terms of magnetic characteristics, while the coercivity showed a trend to increase as the dopant concentration increases.•The semiconducting nature of the synthesized compounds was confirmed by the DC resistivity. NiZnCo ferrite has good magnetic properties and is one of the core materials used in magnetic devices. The solid-state reaction approach is utilized to synthesize Ni0.4Zn0.35Co0.25Fe2-xSmxO4 (x = 0.0, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, and 0.1) ferrites for investigation of structural, morphological, functional, magnetic and electrical resistivity properties using various characterization techniques. The techniques used for characterization were XRD, SEM, FTIR, VSM, and DC electrical resistivity. XRD spectra were used to determine phase confirmation, cubic crystallite size, andtheir variation with dopant content. No additional phase or impurity was found. The SEM pictures revealed ahomogeneous spherical particle formation with minimal porosity. With absorption bands under 1000 cm−1, FTIR spectra indicate the formation of a spinel structure. Tetrahedral (580 to 599 cm−1) and octahedral (388 to 399 cm−1) bond changes can be seen in infrared spectra. The magnetic hysteresis curves revealed soft ferromagnetic behavior, with coercivity (Oe) (532.13 to 312.10Oe) rising and saturation magnetization (Ms) (83.51 to 60.75 emu/g) falling as doping concentration increased. The DC electrical resistivity of synthesized nanoparticles with various compositions was measured against higher temperatures to confirm their semiconductor nature. The findings demonstrated the typical decreasing trend with rising temperature.