Structural, magnetic and hyperfine characterizations of nanocrystalline Zn-Cd doped nickel ferrites

•Cd-Zn doped Ni-ferrite has been prepared through a chemical route.•Structural investigations indicate a strained crystal structure.•Magnetic measurements show low anisotropy coupled with canted spin structure.•Mössbauer measurements show evidence of super transferred hyperfine interactions. In our present work, we have synthesized a series of Cd-Zn doped nickel ferrite ((Cd0.5−xZnx)Ni0.5Fe2O4; x=0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5) through standard chemical co-precipitation method to study the influence of diamagnetic ions (Cd, Zn) on the magnetic properties of ferrites. XRD and Raman spectroscopy were employed for the structural characterizations. The refinement of the X-ray diffractogram data augmented by the Williamson-Hall plots showed the presence of Cd2+ vacancies and a strained crystal structure. The vibrational spectroscopy indicated the presence of lower space-group symmetry and a distorted crystal structure. Magnetic measurements showed the samples possessed low magnetic anisotropy along with a canted spin structure. The Mössbauer measurements confirmed the cation distribution and gave evidence of super transferred hyperfine interactions arising due to canted spin structure of the system.