Low-Temperature Co-Precipitation Synthesis of HoFeO3 Nanoparticles

Abstract

In this research, we investigate and discuss the characteristics of HoFeO3 nanoparticles synthesized by the co-precipitation method at low temperature (t° ≤ 4 °C). The single-phase HoFeO3 samples with the orthorhombic structure formed after annealing of the precipitates at different temperatures up to 950 °C. The annealed HoFeO3 nanoparticles have an average crystal size of 10–20 nm (SEM, TEM). UV-Vis spectrum of HoFeO3 sample annealed at 750 °C showed strong UV and Vis absorption with small optical energy gap (Eg = 1.56 eV). In the range temperature of 100–300 K, the HoFeO3 samples showed superparamagnetic behaviour at 5 kOe with high magnetization (Ms = 1.3–2.4 emu/g) and very low susceptibility (χ << 1).