Post-Tuning of Hydrothermally Grown Mn-Substituted Cobalt Ferrite Magnetic Properties via Thermal Annealing

This work presents a study of the structural and magnetic properties of Mn substituted CoFe2O4 synthesized via SDS-assisted hydrothermal method. Thermal annealing was performed to optimize the magnetic properties by tuning the spinel microstructure. Such post-treatment primarily results in microstrain evolution and an increase in crystallite size, which led to a nonlinear enhancement of coercivity Hc and saturation magnetization Ms, with the maximum energy product BHmax = 0.95 MGOe achieved for Mn0.15Co0.85Fe2O4 at an annealing temperature of 700°C.