Electron microscopy of microwave-synthesized rare-earth chromites

TL;DR

This study synthesizes a series of rare-earth chromites using microwave methods and employs various microscopy and diffraction techniques to confirm their crystal structures and analyze their properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of microwave synthesis combined with XRD, HRTEM, and FE-SEM for comprehensive characterization of rare-earth chromites.

Findings

Confirmed crystal structures via XRD and HRTEM

Correlated magnetization data with structural analysis

Provided detailed morphology of powder crystallites

Abstract

The perovskite rare-earth (RE) chromite series (RE)CrO3 (RE = La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Y, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu) has been synthesized in our laboratory using microwave techniques. In this work we will demonstrate how X-ray diffraction (XRD), Rietveld refinement of XRD pattern and complementary High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) were used to confirm that the desired crystal structure had been formed. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) gave clear indications of the shapes and sizes of the powder crystallites. Magnetization measurement data was found to correlate with the structural information obtained from XRD, Rietveld refinement and HRTEM.