International audienceIn this work, we studied the effect of heterovalent Ca, Sr, Pb, and Ba substitution on the crystal structure, dielectric, local ferroelectric, and magnetic properties of the BiFeO3 multiferroic perovskite. Ceramic solid solutions with the general formula Bi0.7A0.3FeO3 (A is a doping element) were prepared and characterized by x-ray diffraction, dielectric, piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), and magnetic measurements. It is shown that the crystal structure of the compounds is described within the space group R3c, permitting the spontaneous polarization, whose existence was confirmed by the PFM data. Magnetic properties of the solid solutions are determined by the ionic radius of the substituting element. Experimental results suggest that the increase in the radius of the A-site ion leads to the effective suppression of the spiral spin structure of BiFeO3, resulting in the appearance of net magnetization

Dipolar superferromagnetism with reentrant low-temperature superspin glass behavior is observed on a randomly distributed ferromagnetic nanoparticle systems in discontinuous metal-insulator multilayers ͓Co 80 Fe 20 (t)/Al 2 O 3 ͑3 nm͔͒ 10 with nominal thickness 1.1рtр1.3 nm by use of ac susceptometry and dc magnetometry. At tϭ1.0 nm, superspin glass-like freezing is evidenced by the criticality of dynamic and nonlinear susceptibilities.

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Bi 1 − x A x Fe O 3 ceramics (A=Ca,Sr,Pb) were sintered by conventional mixed oxide route. The crystallographic structure of all samples is characterized by the rhombohedral symmetry (space group R3c). The existence of switchable ferroelectric polarization is verified by piezoresponse force microscopy that is proven to be a useful technique in semi-insulating ferroelectrics. Magnetic properties of Ca and Sr-doped ceramics are found to reproduce the antiferromagnetic behavior of undoped BiFeO3 without any enhancement of the magnetization. On the contrary, Pb-doped compound demonstrates appearance of a weak ferromagnetism. It is thus shown that Pb doping of BiFeO3 is a promising way for preparing multiferroic materials.

Discontinuous multilayered Co80Fe20(t)/Al2O3(30 Å) thin films have been prepared by ion-beam sputtering. We report on structural, magnetic, and transport (for current in plane geometry) results obtained in this system. With growing nominal thickness t of the metal layers, which effectively characterizes the granular structure, a transition from tunnel to metallic conductance is observed, indicating the onset of infinite conducting paths at t>18 Å. At t<18 Å, that is within the range of tunnel regime, a different characteristic value t>13 Å was detected from the magnetization data which display here a transition from superparamagnetic to ferromagnetic behavior. The measurements of tunnel magnetoresistance (MR) show that a sharp maximum of MR sensitivity to field takes place at this thickness, reaching ∼24%/kOe at room temperature. At least, MR itself as a function of t has a break at the same value. All these features suggest that some specific kind of percolation with respect to magnetic order occurs in our system when the disordered granular structure is still well separated, as confirmed by the data of high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Hence such magnetic percolation is clearly distinct from usual electrical percolation in these discontinuous layers. At the same time, the highest MR (∼6.5% at room temperature) in this series is attained with decreasing t only at t=10 Å.