Structural, magnetic, optical and photocatalytic properties of GaFeO 3 nanoparticles synthesized via non-aqueous solvent
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Structural, magnetic, optical and photocatalytic properties of GaFeO3 nanoparticles synthesized via non-aqueous solvent-based sol–gel route Vidya Spriha Kujur1 1
and Satyendra Singh1,*
Special Centre for Nanoscience, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India
Received: 19 April 2020
ABSTRACT
Accepted: 21 August 2020
GaFeO3 (GFO) nanoparticles with size ranging from 25–48 nm were synthesized via a non-aqueous solvent-based sol–gel route. The influence of particle size on the structural, magnetic, optical, and photocatalytic properties were investigated. X-ray diffraction and Raman studies have confirmed the orthorhombic structure with the Pc21n space group. The size, morphology, and microstructure of the GFO nanoparticles were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The elemental composition of the GFO nanoparticles was studied by energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The room-temperature magnetic study of the GFO nanoparticles confirmed an increase in the value of magnetization whereas coercivity decreases. The optical band-gap of the GaFeO3 nanoparticles decreases from 2.65 to 2.16 eV as the size of the nanoparticle increases from 25 to 48 nm. The GaFeO3 nanoparticles have displayed excellent photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutant Rhodamine B (RhB) dye. In the photocatalytic study of RhB by GaFeO3 nanoparticles, 68% degradation was achieved with the 25 nm sample. The cyclic photocatalytic study showed the GFO nanoparticles could be used several times for photocatalytic degradation. The total organic carbon study confirmed the degradation of the RhB dye using GFO nanoparticles. The photocatalytic properties of the GFO nanoparticles can be attributed to large surface areas and the lower rate of the electron–hole pair recombination.
Springer Science+Business
Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
1 Introduction Magnetoelectric (ME) multiferroic materials represent the future era of novel versatile materials, which display both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties, simultaneously, along with coupling between
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04318-2
these two properties [1–3]. ME multiferroic materials have received considerable attention due to involved fascinating physics and also their potential applications in non-volatile memory elements, spintronic devices, nano-electronics, magnetic field sensors, and actuators, ferroelectric photovoltaics, etc.[2–5].
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron
Among other ME multiferroic materials, GaFeO3 (GFO) is one of the favorable materials due to its unique piezoelectric, large ME, and magneto-optic properties [6–9]. GFO crystallizes in a non-centrosymmetric orthorhombic structure, and its space group is Pc21n with four Wyckoff sites available for cations as per previous studies and XRD data, two labeled as Ga1 and Ga2 (mainly occupied by gallium) and the other two labeled as Fe1 and Fe2 (mostly occupied by iron) [9, 10]. The
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