Structural, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of o‐TbFeO3 Nanomaterials Synthesized by the co‐Precipitation Method

Abstract

AbstractFollowing the co‐precipitation method for producing terbium orthoferrite (TbFeO3), the final products were denoted as TbFeO3‐650, −750, and −850. A single‐phase of orthorhombic TbFeO3 crystals (o‐TbFeO3) was obtained with a calcination temperature of up to 850 °C, while in the range of 650–750 °C there was still a small amount of terbium and iron oxide phases. The average size of o‐TbFeO3 crystallites for the TbFeO3‐850 sample was about 76 nm and was larger than that of TbFeO3‐650 (~45 nm) and TbFeO3‐750 (~47 nm). The o‐TbFeO3 crystal structure in all samples was found to be distorted. In the applied field from −15 to +15 kOe, all of the samples had low values of coercive field (5–11 ⋅ 10−3 Oe) but high values of net magnetization (2.06–2.40 emu ⋅ g−1); the samples appeared to behave as paramagnetic materials. It was shown that the TbFeO3‐850 sample has slightly better magnetic properties than the two others. An average grain size of about 79 nm was found in the TbFeO3‐850 sample, which exhibited a morphology of sphere‐like shapes with highly agglomerated grains. The TbFeO3‐850 sample demonstrated a high absorbance at wavelengths of 400–600 nm, with a direct bandgap of about 2.68 eV.