Abstract
A series of Co0.5Cd0.5Fe2-xCexO4 (0.00 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) nanoferrites was produced using a sol-gel method. The impact of Ce3+ doping on structural, optical, dielectric and photocatalytic characteristics of the nanoferrites was quantified. On Ce3+ doping, the particle size, cell volume and lattice constant decreased from 20.8 nm to 12.6 nm, 607.70 Å3 to 586.24 Å3 and 8.470 Å to 8.369 Å, respectively. The M − O stretching at tetra and octahedral lattice sites in FTIR and Raman analyses revealed pure spinel structures of the as-synthesized nanoferrites. On Ce3+ doping, the band gap energy increased from 2.35 eV to 2.86 eV. The dielectric constant, dielectric loss and dielectric tangent loss showed a decreasing trend with an increase in applied frequency and Ce+3 content. AC conductivity also showed similar trend with Ce+3 substitution, but this trend reverses with a rise in applied frequency. These findings suggest that Ce+3 doped Co–Cd is a highly suitable material for construction of high frequency devices. The Ce+3 content of Co–Cd photocatalyst did not affect much the photocatalytic activity up to a certain limit of x = 0 to 0.04. However, a further increase in Ce+3 content notably suppressed the photocatalytic activity of Co–Cd. Thus, slight insertion of Ce+3 in Co–Cd samples is supportive to strong photocatalytic activity under the visible light.