Single phase multiferroic compounds by doping Bi4Ti3O12 with Fe+3 ions

STACHIOTTI, MARCELO; LAVADO, CRISTIAN; REBOLA, ALEJANDRO

Foz de Iguazu

Congreso; 7th International Congress on Ceramics - ICC7; 2018

The effects of Fe doping on electric and magnetic properties of Bi4Ti3O12 (BIT) were investigated. BIT is one of the simplest compounds in the Aurivillius family with a vast potential for applications, specially as NvRAMs. We developed multiferroic compounds by Fe3+/Nb5+ co-substitution on Ti4+ sites. In this way Bi4Ti3-x(Nb0.5Fe0.5)xO12 ceramics were synthesized by a solid state reaction technique. We show that the structure of the compounds with x ≤ 1 is the characteristic one of the n=3 member of the Aurivillius family. A secondary pyrochlore phase was detected for x > 1, and this phase is dominant at x=2. We show that the Aurivillius x=2 phase can be stabilized however by the addition of La (Bi3.25La0.75TiNbFeO12 ,for example) . Raman measurements corroborated that both Fe3+ and Nb5+ ions are incorporated into the Ti sites. Dielectric studies at room-temperature displayed the reduction of dielectric constant and loss tangent with substitution, while the switching behavior shows ferroelectric character. Magnetic measurements indicated antiferromagnetic spin correlations between Fe3+ ions. The results are corroborated by first-principles calculations on Bi4TiNbFeO12, which predict an electric polarization of ~35 uC/cm2 and confirm the antiferromagnetic ground state, for which we obtain a nearest-neighbor super-exchange coupling J=7meV. We assessed different B sites configurations and found a preference for Fe3+ ions to be located at the outer perovskite B sites.