Microwave-assisted combustion synthesis of pure and zinc-doped copper ferrite nanoparticles: Structural, morphological, optical, vibrational, and magnetic behavior

A microwave combustion method was used to synthesize Cu1-xZn1-xFe2O4 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5) nanoparticles. The synthesized Zn-doped CuFe2O4 nanoparticles were characterized by techniques such as X-ray diffraction, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, Fourier transform IR spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform IR spectroscopy results confirmed the formation of Cu1-xZn1-xFe2O4 (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5) nanoparticles. The crystallite size and lattice parameter were determined as 15-19 run and 8.319-8.400 angstrom, respectively. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of agglomerated spherical particles of Cu1-xZn1-xFe2O4. Elemental mapping of pure and Zn-doped CuFe2O4 was done by energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. The band gap was calculated with the Kubelka-Munk function and was found to lie in the range from 2.30 to 2.51 eV. Finally, M-H curves were plotted and the magnetic properties, such as coercivity, remanent magnetization, and saturation magnetization, were determined.