Rational Sol-Gel-Based Synthesis Design and Magnetic, Dielectric, and Optical Properties Study of Nanocrystalline Sr3Co2WO9 Triple Perovskite

Complex perovskites have attracted extensive attention due to their fascinating physical properties and novel features owing to the coexistence of the ferro-/ferri-magnetic ground state and semiconducting behavior in the single material. Herein, the triple perovskite Sr3Co2WO9 (SCWO) has been successfully synthesized for the first time in the nanocrystalline form with an average crystallite size of 23 nm using a high yield (81%) aqueous citrate sol-gel method. At room temperature, the crystal structure of Sr3Co2WO9 is cubic, space group Fm (3) over barm, with lattice parameter a = 7.9073(6) angstrom. The formation of SCWO triple perovskite was studied in situ by X-ray diffraction and subsequently analyzed by the Rietveld analysis. The detected hysteresis loops with nonzero remanent magnetization and rather large coercive field reveal ferrimagnetic ordering with a Curie temperature of 144 K. The measured effective magnetic moment of mu(B) is close to the expected value for the rarely observed intermediate spin S = 1. It is found that the compound exhibits semiconducting properties with the optical band gaps equal to 3.52 eV (indirect) and 3.76 eV (direct), respectively, further confirmed by the determination of the AC conductivity, which in the measured temperature range (25-500 degrees C at 1 kHz) lies within the interval from 10(-5)-10(-4) Omega(-1) cm(-1). The Maxwell-Wagner model is employed to describe the frequency dependent dielectric constant. The frequency-dependent AC conductivity follows the universal Jonscher power law. Since it possesses both magnetic and semiconductor properties, this material could be a promising candidate to use in devices where its semiconducting properties would be spin-controlled.