Studies on conducting nanocomposite with gallium nitride–doped ferrite, part – I

This article presents the synthesis and the structural, morphological, magnetic and spectroscopic characterisations of GaN-doped Fe2O3 nanoparticles prepared by the sol–gel method. The ‘Sci find’ software was unable to trace any of the references to point out the earlier knowledge and existence of this novel compound in the literature. We claim our contribution for the same. The structural analysis is done using the X-ray diffraction and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, while the morphological analysis is done by the scanning electron microscope and the transmission electron microscope. The samples show a simple cubic crystalline structure. The morphological and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis and the infrared studies confirm the composition of the material and the particle sizes of the samples are found to be in the range of 9–27 nm (for x = 0.5) and 23–30 nm (for x = 0.75). The particle sizes, obtained from the histogram evaluations, the Debye–Scherrer formula in X-ray diffraction and the selected area electron diffraction measurements are all in good agreement. The room temperature magnetic measurements obtained using the vibration sample magnetometer for x = 0.5, 0.75,1 and 5 are presented as the hysteresis curves and their related plots. The discussion about the conclusions drawn therein infers that the coercivity increases with the concentration. The compound exhibits spinel structure and vivid changes from the super paramagnetic to the ferromagnetic state.