Microstructure and Magnetoelectric Properties of Microwave Sintered CoFe ₂ O ₄ ‐PZT Particulate Composite Synthesized in Situ

Abstract

This study evaluated and compared the effect of microwave and conventional sintering on a CoFeiOj-PZT 20/80 particulate nanocomposite with different particle architectures (spherical and core-shell), synthesized in one step via in situ Pechini and sol-gel chemical methods. The effect of the sintering method on the grain size of the particulate composites was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), while apparent density and porosity were determined by the Archimedes method. These characterizations revealed that the two methods of synthesis successfully produced the particulate composite, and that the grains of the ferromagnetic phase were distributed homogeneously within the ferroelectric matrix. However, the microwave-sintered sol-gel samples with core-shell nanoparticles retained a more homogeneous average nanogram size (280nm) than the ferrite phase of the conventionally sintered samples (6 pm). Our efforts focused on optimizing the method of synthesis and the microwave processing parameters to produce immiscible composites with high electrical resistivity and magnetoelectric response.