Controlling the structural, magnetic and shielding properties of Er2O3 nanostructures through cobalt doping

Er2-xCoxO3 2-x Co x O 3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2) nanostructures were attained using a sol gel technique. The formed phases, lattice parameters, cation distributions and octahedron volume surrounding different cations were deduced from the Rietveld analysis. To assess the cationic arrangement within the two inequivalent sites of the structure, the coefficient of the cationic distribution K is computed. The average size of crystallites experienced a reduction while the average lattice micro-strain exhibited an increase with the increase in Co doping levels. Curie-Weiss law was applied to calculate the effective magnetic moments and Curie paramagnetic temperature for all samples. The calculated magnetic moment (mu cal) cal ) is larger than the effective one (mu eff). eff ). The antiferromagnetic interaction between the magnetic ions in the Er2-xCoxO3 2-x Co x O 3 system improved as the levels of Co increased, as indicated by the negative Curie paramagnetic temperature values. The theoretical predictions for the radiation shielding characteristics of Er2-xCoxO3 2-x Co x O 3 system were analyzed. The study also showed that lower energy levels had better linear attenuation compared to higher ones. The lowest half-value layer (HVL) and the tenth value layer (TVL) values were obtained at 15 keV for Er2-xCoxO3 2-x Co x O 3 samples. The sample consisting of Er 1 & sdot;8 Co 0 & sdot;2 O 3 exhibits the greatest mean free path (MFP) value of 3.31 cm at an energy level of 5 MeV. All samples had higher fast neutron removal cross-section (FNRCS) values compared to chromite and the widely obtainable shielding glasses RS-253G18, RS-360, and RS-520.