Structural characterization and rietveld refinement of CeO₂/CoFe₂O₄ nanocomposites prepared via coprecipitation method

Abstract

Abstract The CeO 2 /CoFe 2 O 4 nanocomposites were synthesized through the co-precipitation approach followed by heat-treatment. As-prepared sample were sintered at temp 600°C and 800°C for two hours. To study the structural characterization of the prepared samples X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was used. The obtained XRD data was further refined through the Rietveld method by using the fullprof suit software. The heat-treated samples exhibit two crystalline phases namely CeO 2 and CoFe 2 O 4 . The refinement confirmed that all the samples are cubic structure. The CoFe 2 O 4 was found to have an fcc cubic structure with space group Fd-3m(227), whereas the crystal structure of CeO 2 has fcc structure with space group Fm-3m(225). In this paper, the lattice parameters, bond length, bond angle, particle size, lattice strain, dislocation density were studied in detail. The Wyckoff positions and interatomic distance have been calculated.