Influence of Sintering Duration on Structural, Optical and Magnetic Behavior of Cobalt Ferrite

ABSTRACT This work investigates the impact of sintering duration on the structural, optical and magnetic behavior of cobalt ferrite materials. These materials were synthesized using the solid‐state reaction method by sintering the mixture of cobalt oxide and ferric oxide at 1000°C for 12, 20, 30, and 50 h. X‐ray diffraction analys is confirmed the formation of a single‐phase spinel structure with the space group . Rietveld refinement showed that behavior of cation distribution among the tetrahedral and the octahedral sites in all materials is similar to that of almost inverse spinel phase. Crystallite size decreased from 53 to 40 nm as sintering time increases from 12 to 50 h. Sintering duration leads to the change in porosity of these materials. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the presence of metal‐oxygen bonding in all the materials. Energy dispersive spectroscopic analysis confirms the chemical homogeneity in all the synthesized materials. The energy band gap decreased slightly on increasing sintering duration. The hysteresis curves show the ferrimagnetic nature of all synthesized materials. The magnetization values of all sintered samples show a decreasing trend with sintering duration. The calculated magnetic moment was found in well correlation with the complete inverse spinel structure of these materials.