Elastic and dielectric properties of nano-crystalline Dy 3+ substituted zinc–chromium ferrite Ravi Shitole 1 , V. K. Barote 2 , M. L. Mane 3 , S. T. Alone 4 , K. M. Batoo 5 , Sajjad Hussain 6 , and R. H. Kadam 1, * 1 Materials Research Laboratory, Srikrishna Mahavidyalaya Gunjoti, Omerga, Osmanabad, MS 413613, India 2 Department of Physics, Sant Dnyaneshwar Mahavidyalaya, Soegaon 431120, Maharashtra, India 3 Department of Physics, S. G. R. G. Shinde College, Paranda, Osmanabad, MS, India 4 Department of Physics, Rajarshi Shahu Arts, Commerce and Science College, Pathri, Aurangabad, M.S., India 5 College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box-2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia 6 Graphene Research Institute and Institute of Nano and Advanced Materials Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 143-747, Republic of Korea Received: 23 January 2023 Accepted: 24 April 2023 Ó The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023 ABSTRACT The structural, elastic and dielectric properties of ZnCr 0.5 Dy x Fe 1.5-x O 4 ferrite system where x = 0.0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075 and 0.1 was investigated and reported herein. Ferrite samples were synthesized by the sol–gel auto-combustion method. The structural, morphological, elastic and dielectric properties were investigated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), infra-red spectroscopy (IR), scan- ning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dielec- tric measurements. XRD and TEM analysis confirmed the nanocrystalline nature of all the prepared samples. Elastic moduli such as longitudinal wave velocity (V l ), shear wave velocity (V S ), stiffness constant (C 11 , C 12 ), mean wave velocity (V m ), rigidity modulus (G), bulk modulus (K), Young modulus (E), Poisson ratio (r) and Debye temperature (h E ) was calculated from the IR data. Dielectric properties were investigated by using the two-probe technique. The substitution of rare-earth Dy ions alter the structural, elastic and dielectric properties of ZnCr 0.5 Dy x Fe 1.5-x O 4 ferrite system. The mechanisms involved are discussed in the manuscript. 1 Introduction Oxide materials with complex structures gaining much attentions in recent years because of their wide range of applications in many technological devices [1–4]. Among the complex oxide systems, nano sized ferrites materials possess better magnetic anisotropy compared to their bulk counterpart [5–9]. In partic- ular, because of potential characteristic of these nano ferrite such as moderate saturation magnetization and retentivity, large coercivity, these ferrites can be utilized in numerous technological fields such as Address correspondence to E-mail: ram111612@yahoo.co.in https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10531-6 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron (2023)34:1106