Local structure and magnetic behaviour of Fe-doped TiO2 anatase nanoparticles: experiments and calculations

We present an investigation of Fe-doped TiO2 anatase nanoparticles (2.8 and 5.4 at.% Fe) where Fe substitutes Ti atoms without the presence of other phases. In order to characterize these samples we used x-ray absorption experiments, 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy, ab initio calculations and magnetometry. Results from iron K-edge near-edge and extended x-ray absorption fine structure confirm that Fe3+ replaces Ti4+ in the TiO2 anatase structure increasing the metal-anion bond length. Mossbauer spectra recorded at room temperature show asymmetric Fe3+ broad doublets. These results agree with structural, hyperfine and magnetic properties calculated using density-functional theory, if oxygen vacancies are present in the iron–oxygen octahedra. Mossbauer and magnetic measurements indicate that samples are paramagnetic at room temperature. At low temperatures, two kind of magnetic species can be distinguished: (i) isolated paramagnetic Fe3+ ions and (ii) antiferromagnetically coupled Fe3+ ions. These results also show that substitutional Fe in nanosized anatase TiO2 does not induce ferromagnetic ordering.