Doped Transition Metal Oxide and Ferrite Nanocrystals

Nanosized magnetic materials have received great attention and importance during the last decade. Nanomagnetic material is one of the hottest subjects of present day research activities. The physical properties of nanosized magnetic materials differ considerably from that of their bulk counterparts and the magnetic characteristics of many materials can be tuned by reducing their size. The objectives of this research work are the synthesis and studies on the structural and magnetic properties of some selected transition metal oxides and ferrites in nanocrystalline form. The research work has been carried out on transition metal ion doped zinc oxide (ZnO) based diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), some ferrites (for instance, Zn-ferrite, NiZn-ferrite, maghemite, etc.) and magnetopolymer nanocomposite systems. The respective nanocrystalline oxides are synthesized using a simple solution combustion method and characterized using various techniques. The results from the studies on different materials are presented in this thesis, consisting of six chapters. Last but not the least, several performance parameters have been measured and conditions for best results have been discussed.