Cation distribution controlled dielectric, electrical and magnetic behavior of In3+ substituted cobalt ferrites synthesized via solid-state reaction technique

Abstract We report the structural, cation distribution, dielectric, electrical and magnetic properties of CoFe 2− x In x O 4 (0.0 ≤  x  ≤ 0.6) ferrites. Rietveld fitted X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns confirm the formation of single phase cubic spinel structure with Fd3m space group for all the samples. The comprehensive analysis of XRD based cation distribution has been performed to see the effect of In 3+ ions substitution on various structural parameters such as site ionic radii, edge and bond lengths, interionic distances etc. The dielectric constant and tangent loss have been studied as a function of temperature and frequency. The dielectric data presented in electric modulus form reveals the presence of non-Debye relaxation behavior in considered ferrites. Both the AC and DC conductivities as a function of temperature are found to decrease with increasing In 3+ content. The power law behavior of AC-conductivity indicates a strong correlation among electrons in these systems. The isothermal magnetization versus applied field curves with high field slope and significant coercivity suggest that studied materials are highly anisotropic with canted spin structures and exhibit ferrimagnetic behavior at 300 K. Magnetization gets enhanced up to 40% of In 3+ substitution. The observed low dielectric losses and high resistivity can find their application in power transformers at high frequencies.