Impedance response and dielectric relaxation in co-precipitation derived ferrite (Ni,Zn)Fe2O4 ceramics

Dielectric spectra and magnetization hysteresis loops were used to investigate the grain size effect with temperature on the electrical and magnetic response of co-precipitation derived spinel (Ni0.5Zn0.5)Fe2O4 (NZFO) ceramics. Remarkable dielectric relaxation phenomena of non-Debye type have been observed in each NZFO ceramics as confirmed by two kinds of Cole-Cole plots of the 1100 °C sintered samples, mainly due to the electron-hopping mechanism between n-type and p-type carriers and interfacial ion effect when applied an increase of temperature. The high and low response of grain and grain-boundary regions were determined by modeling the impedance experimental results on two equivalent RC circuits taking into account grain deep trap states. By employing the modified Arrhenius equation, activation energy values of different sintering temperatures were calculated and analyzed in combination with oxygen vacancy. In addition, the magnetization of various sintering temperature samples is dominated by cation distribution and surface effect in different particle ranges.