Effect of aluminum substitution on microwave absorption properties of barium hexaferrite

Abstract

Aluminum substituted barium hexaferrites were prepared by the self-propagating combustion method and subsequent calcination at 850 °C. The crystalline structure, complex permittivity, complex permeability, and hyperfine parameters of BaFe12−xAlxO19 (x varies from 1.5 to 2.3 in steps of 0.2) were measured with x-ray diffraction (XRD), vector network analyzer and Mössbauer spectroscopy. The XRD results show that all Al3+ ions enter into the lattice of hexagonal barium ferrite. The substitution of Al3+ ions can greatly affect the complex permittivity and permeability of barium ferrite. With increasing substitution, the real part of complex permittivity increases gradually, and the peaks of the imaginary part of complex permeability shift into higher frequency band. When the substitution amount x is 1.9, the largest movement of the peaks is 1.95 GHz, which indicates that the ferromagnetic resonant frequency of barium ferrite increases by 1.95 GHz. The Al3+ ions preferentially occupy the 4f2, 2a, 4f1, and 12k sites in the subcrystalline structure up to x=1.9, and then the Al3+ ions mainly occupy 12k sites. This change also results in 2b sites with a large quadrupole splitting. These occupations lead to a variable magnetocrystalline anisotropy field.