Electronic and magnetic properties of boron substituted CuFeO₂ delafossite oxide

Synchrotron x-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) and X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (XAFS) were used to investigate the crystal and electronic properties of boron-substituted CuFeO2 material at room temperature. Without boron substitution, the polycrystalline structures of the trigonal (rhombohedral) Rm' over bar m' CuFeO2 (87.7%) and hexagonal 'P63/mmc' (12.3%), which were also present in each sample but in different proportions, were utilised to identify the base material. XRD patterns revealed that, beyond 10% boron substitution, the metal-oxygen bonds (Fe-O and Cu-O) weakened, resulting in the formation of new tetragonal 'I41/amd' CuFe2O4 crystals. Although the CuFeO2 structure was preserved, it is conceivable that the presence of other crystal structures could lead to the formation of new features. This state arose as a result of CuFe2O4 crystallization and the impact of boron activity on the surrounding oxygen structures. By measuring magnetisation at both swept temperatures (10-300 K) and applied magnetic fields (+/- 30 kOe), the magnetic properties of the samples were investigated. In the 10-300 K temperature range, the polycrystalline samples exhibit a ferromagnetic property without a magnetic phase transition. This suggests that replacing B with Fe in CuFe(1-x)BxO(2 )does not influence the primary magnetic property of CuFeO2. The samples' saturation magnetisation (Ms) values gradually fall as the B substitution content increases with Fe. This is because there's a chance that the non-transition metal B in CuFe1-xBxO(2) will boost antiferromagnetic superexchange Cu-O interactions while lowering the p-d exchange interaction.