Abstract
Mössbauer spectroscopy has been used to examine the effect of increasing copper ion concentration on the iron distribution in Cu x Fe3−x O4(0⩽x⩽0.9). For x⩽0.37, fast electron exchange among octahedral ironions occurs as in Fe3O4, suggesting that the itinerant electrons associated with the octahedral Fe2+ions remain delocalized in the sublattice. At high values of x (x⩾0.59), however, the itinerant electrons become localized in a small fraction of exchange‐coupled ironions. The relative numbers of distinguishable cations making up the complements of the octahedral sites of the copperferrites are determined.
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