Impact of Lanthanum-Doping on the Physical and Electrical Properties of Cobalt Ferrites

Cobalt ferrites have attracted extraordinary attention due to their high coercivity, chemical stability, and mechanical hardness. Lanthanum doped-cobalt ferrites having chemical formula CoLaxFe2-xO4 with composition x = (0.00, 0.015, 0.045, 0.060) were synthesized by chemical co-precipitation method. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, and current-voltage (I-V) technique. The structure of the crystal was analyzed by X-ray diffraction. The crystallite size of nanoparticles was examined in the range of 21–25 nm, and a fluctuating trend was found with the inclusion of La3+ cations. The X-ray diffraction patterns verify the contraction of lattice constant and unit cell volume with the substitution of La3+ cations except for the concentration of x = 0.060. Lattice constant was in the range of 8.34 A–8.41 A while unit volume cell was in the range of 580 A3–596 A3. The resistivity of all samples was calculated by the application of two probes I-V technique. The maximum resistivity of the order of 81.129 × 105 Ω cm was found for the concentration of x = 0.060 at 723 K which makes it useful for high-frequency gimmicks applications. The resistivity and drift mobility were found inversely related to each other. The inverse relation low-frequency absorption band and high-frequency absorption bands were analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy technique.