Radiation-induced modifications in structural, electrical and dielectric properties of Ti4+ ions substituted Li0.5Fe2.5O4 nanoparticles

In the present study, Li0.5+0.5xTixFe2.5-1.5xO4 (where, 0.0 ae x ae 1.0 in step of 0.2) nanoparticles were synthesized via sol-gel auto combustion technique. The nanocrystalline samples exposed to Co-60 gamma (gamma)-radiation of 5 Mrad dose, to understand its effect on structural, morphological, electrical and dielectric properties. The nanoparticles characterized by X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) techniques before and after irradiation. The irradiated samples give good crystallinity, and small crystallite size (similar to 25 nm) as compared to pristine samples (similar to 45 nm) and the lattice parameter gets decreased up to similar to 0.01 . The FE-SEM images of pristine samples show spherical morphology, whereas irradiated samples showed some cracks in it. Temperature-dependent conductivity measured by two probe technique reveals that the conductivity decreases (upto similar to 5 x 10(-5)Omega(-1)) after irradiation by obeying Ohmic nature. The dielectric measurements show the strong influence of irradiation on all the samples.