Exchange coupling controlled ferrite with dual magnetic resonance and broad frequency bandwidth in microwave absorption

Ti-doped barium ferrite powders BaFe12−xTixO19 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7 and 0.8) were synthesized by the sol–gel method. The phase structure and morphology were analyzed by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The powders were also studied for their magnetic properties and microwave absorption. Results show that the Ti-doped barium ferrites (BFTO) exist in single phase and exhibit hexagonal plate-like structure. The anisotropy field Ha of the BFTO decreases almost linearly with the increase in Ti concentration, which leads to a shift of the natural resonance peak toward low frequency. Two natural resonance peaks appear, which can be assigned to the double values of the Landé factor g that are found to be ~2.0 and ~2.3 in the system and can be essentially attributed to the existence of Fe3+ ions and the exchange coupling effect between Fe3+ and Fe2+ ions, respectively. Such a dual resonance effect contributes a broad magnetic loss peak and thus a high attenuation constant, and leads to a dual reflection loss (RL) peak over the frequency range between 26.5 and 40 GHz. The high attenuation constants are between 350 and 500 at peak position. The optimal RL reaches around −45 dB and the practicable frequency bandwidth is beyond 11 GHz. This suggests that the BFTO powders could be used as microwave absorbing materials with extraordinary properties.