The Effect of Zinc Doped Bismuth Ferrite on Changes in Structural and Microwave Absorption Properties through the Sol-gel Synthesis Method

The zinc (Zn) doped bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) have been successfully synthesized through the sol-gel autocombustion method as a microwave absorbent material through a composite process with silicone rubber. The characterizations of zinc doped bismuth ferrite nanoparticles was done using the X-ray diffraction (XRD), the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), the vibration sample magnetometer (VSM), and the vector network analyzer (VNA). Through the XRD test, the nanoparticle BiFe1-xZnxO3 (x = 0, 0.06, and 0.12) have a crystal structure of rhombohedral R3c. Through the FTIR test, it was observed that the area of wave number 491–569 cm-1 were used as an absorber for BiFeO3, while the one in zinc doped BiFeO3 were observed to be 489–636 cm-1. The VSM test shows that the BiFe1-xZnxO3 nanoparticles (x = 0, 0.06, and 0.12) have ferromagnetic properties and potentially change to paramagnetic properties with the addition of zinc doping. The VNA test were obtained, bismuth ferrite without doping has a reflection loss (RL) of –25.79 dB with a narrower frequency range and bismuth ferrite with zinc doping (%wt x = 0.12) has a RL of –30.02 dB with a wider frequency range so that zinc doped BiFeO3 potentially to be a good absorbent material.