CoFe2O4 magnetic ceramic derived from gel and densified by spark plasma sintering

Cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) has been successfully synthesized by sol-gel technique. Pellets were prepared by spark plasma sintering technique (SPS) from CoFe2O4 sol-gel derived powder. The rapid sintering of CoFe2O4 pellet by SPS at 950 °C, leads to a dense ceramic (97%rtheoretic) with average crystallite size of 71 nm. As revealed by X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer measurements, the obtained powder and SPS pellets are spinel ferrite with a cubic symmetry. Complex dielectric investigation performed on CoFe2O4 ceramic reveals multiple relaxation mechanisms while the magnetic measurements indicated a saturation magnetization value of ~ 83 A×m2/kg at room temperature, which make them useful for applications in microwave domain.