Role of Ce-Mn substitution on structural, electrical and magnetic properties of W-type strontium hexaferrites

Graphical abstract: The saturation magnetization and remanence increase with the Ce-Mn content and the maximum value is found for the sample Sr0.98Ce0.02Co2Mn0.2Fe15.8O27 which suggest that this material can be used for high density recording media. Highlights: → The pure W-type hexaferrites materials are synthesized by the simple co-precipitation method and crystallite size is found in the range of 22.5-30 nm. The synthesized materials are in single magnetic domain as suggested by value of squareness ratio. The substitution of Ce-Mn increases the saturation magnetization and remanence which suggest that the synthesized materials can be used in high density recording media. - Abstract: W-type hexaferrites with nominal composition Sr1-xCexCo2MnyFe16-yO27 (x = 0.00, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06 and y = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6) has been synthesized by the chemical co-precipitation method. The effect of substitution of Ce at Sr and Mn at Fe site on the structural, magnetic and electrical properties has been investigated. The XRD patterns confirm single W-type hexaferrite phase and various parameters such as lattice constants (a and c), cell volume (V), crystallite size (D), X-ray density (dx), bulk density (db) and porosity (P) were calculated from XRD data. The crystallite size is found in the range of 22.5-30 nm and this size is small enough to obtained suitable signal-to-noise ratio in high density recording media. The magnetic properties such as saturation magnetization, remanence, squareness ratio and coercivity were calculated from hysteresis loops and were observed to increase with increase in Ce-Mn concentration up to a certain substitution level. The resistivity showed interesting behavior with temperature, showing metal-to-semiconductor transition temperature. The increase in saturation and remanence suggest that the synthesized materials can be used in the high density recording media.