Investigation of cation distributions and temperature-dependent magnetic properties of polycrystalline CoFe2O4

Phase-pure cobalt ferrite [CoFe2O4 (CFO)] is prepared by sol-gel autocombustion technique in order to study its structural and magnetic properties. The presence of mixed spinel cubic structure (space group= Fd-3m) is confirmed from the Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and Raman spectra study. X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS) suggest the existence of Co+2 and Fe+3 ions. Analysis of the magnetic data shows that coercivity, remanence and saturation magnetization decreases with increase in temperature.