Structural and magnetic properties of vanadium doped M-type barium hexaferrite (BaFe12-xVxO19)

Abstract

Precursor powders of barium hexaferrite doped with vanadium, BaFe12-xVxO19 with (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5), were prepared using the ball milling technique and then sintered at different temperatures for 2 h. The structural properties of the prepared samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while the magnetic properties were examined by the vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). XRD and SEM studies of the samples sintered at 1100° C indicated the presence of Ba3V2O8 and α-Fe2O3 non-magnetic oxide phases in addition to BaM hexaferrite phase. The fractions of the nonmagnetic oxide phases were found to increase with increasing x, and sintering the samples at temperatures higher than 1100° C was found to reduce the amounts of these non-magnetic phases only slightly. However, the addition of barium in excess of the stoichiometric ratio was found to remove the α-Fe2O3 oxide, and improve the saturation magnetization of the samples significantly. In addition, washing these samples with HCl was found to improve the saturation magnetization further. The effect of sintering the samples at higher temperatures was also found to reduce the coercivity due to growth of the particle size. However, the coercivity of all samples remained high enough for potential permanent magnet and magnetic recording applications.