Crystal field distortion of La3+ ion-doped Mn-Cr ferrite

Highlights: • Doping spinel ferrite with La³⁺ ions affects the lattice structure. • XRD and Raman scattering confirm the crystal field distortion. • We focused on the magnetic properties of the distorted lattice. • Giant magneto-impedance behavior is observed. Ion doping in crystals can result in lattice modifications triggering interesting magnetic and optical properties of the material, understood as a compensation of the crystal deformation and microstrain. We investigated the spinel structure of Mn-Cr ferrite after doping with La³⁺ ions. The structure was first characterized by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Raman scattering spectra were taken that could also be interpreted in terms of crystal field distortion due to La³⁺ ion doping. On assessing the magneto-impedance of the doped ferrite, it showed giant magneto-impedance behavior, with a strong drop of over 50%. The saturation magnetization was characterised by vibrating sample magnetometer and was found to be 20.25 emu/g with remnant magnetization of 1.47 emu/g.