One-pot sonochemical synthesis of Fe1-xCuxCr2S4 chalcospinels

We present a simple and convenient one step route to prepare a series of chalcospinels Fe1−xCuxCr2S4 employing high frequency sound waves. The magnetic and electronic transport properties of the as-prepared spinels were studied, and this simple, easy, and efficient synthetic route may further encourage wider application of Cu-doped Fe chalcogenides in solid state magnetoelectronic devices. Furthermore, the adopted synthetic route highlights a one-pot synthesis employing organometallic precursors such as metal carbonyls, ethylenedimine, and elemental sulfur. The ease of synthesizing such complex spinel structures of Fe1−xCuxCr2S4 chalcogenides with x=0.3, 0.4, and 0.6 has been highlighted in this work. The rapid cavitational collapse results in sulfur deficiency in the system, which drastically alters the conduction behavior. All the compositions studied show a negative magnetoresistance response except for x=0.3 which exhibit an unusual positive magnetoresistance effect. Such an effect has been attributed...