Yttrium-Iron Garnet and Yttrium Orthoferrite Nanocrystals: Hydrothermal Synthesis, Magnetic Property and Phase Transformation Study

Abstract

In this work, we present a new and fast method to obtain the single phase Y3Fe5O12 (YIG, cubic) and YFeO3 (YIP, orthorhombic) nanocrystals based on hydrothermal technique. The influence of initial Y/Fe mole ratio and calcination temperature on the nature, purity, phase structure, and morphology of the product was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, energy-dispersive (EDX) X-ray spectroscopy, and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The results show that the transformation of the as-synthesized YIG from amorphous to orthorhombic and finally to cubic phase occurs with the increase of annealing temperature. On this basis, the pure cubic phase YIG can be obtained by calcination (at 1100 °C) of the precursor which is prepared using the hydrothermal treatment of mole ratio of Y:Fe = 1:1.5 exposure to an ammonia atmosphere. Also, the initial Y/Fe mole ratio of 1:1 and calcination temperature of 1000 °C are the optimal conditions to form single-phase nanocrystalline YIP. Further, vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) measurements illustrate the average magnetic saturation, coercivity and remanence of 2.73 and 15.00 emu/g, 42.74 and 40.02 Oe, and 1.65 and 4.30 emu/g for YIP and YIG nanocrystals, revealing their soft ferromagnetic character.