Mössbauer and structural study of the Fe₃Sn system and the effect of doping with indium

In this work, we study the possibility of obtaining the pure Fe₃Sn phase by means of two solid-state reactions (2-SSR) method in which two thermal treatments are made. Samples of Fe₃Sn_1-xIn_x were prepared with x = 0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20 by means of two solid state reactions. These samples were studied by X-ray diffraction (DRX) and Mössbauer spectrometry (MS). Rietveld analysis showed that the DRX patterns of the samples were refined with the hexagonal crystalline phases: Fe₃Sn, Fe₂Sn, FeSn₂, FeSn, In_0.2Sn_0.8 and the cubic phase Fe_1.84Sn_0.16. With this structural analysis, it was shown that the Fe₃Sn phase appears in the Fe₃Sn_1-xIn_x sample with x = 0.00 in an approximately 90% wt. In addition, it was found that the weight percentage (wt%) of the Fe₃Sn phase present in each of the 5 samples decreases as the doping or insertion of In increases in the Fe₃Sn_1-xIn_x samples, while the weight percentage of the In_0.2Sn_0.8 phase increases as indium doping increases. The other crystalline phases present in the samples do not change monotonously or follow some pattern. The Mössbauer spectra for the samples were adjusted with sextets associated with the ferromagnetic phases such as: Fe₃Sn, Fe₃Sn₂, FeSn and Fe_1.84Sn_0.16. The Mössbauer adjustments showed that the percentage of spectral area of the Fe₃Sn magnetic phase decreases as indium doping increases and the percentage of spectral area of the Fe₃Sn₂, FeSn and Fe_1.84Sn_0.16 phases increase.