Structural, Optical and Multiferroic Properties of (Nd, Zn)-Co-doped BiFeO3 Nanoparticles

Abstract

The pure BiFeO3(BFO) and (Nd, Zn) co-doped BFO nanoparticles were prepared by a sol-gel method. The crystal structure, optical and multiferroic properties of the samples were systematically investigated. Rietveld refinement showed that the samples crystallized in rhombhohedral R3c structure. In UV-Visible diffuse absorption spectra, an apparent blue shift can be observed after co-doping, which indicates a possible application in photocatalyst and photoconductive devices. Compared with pure BFO sample, the leakage current density of the x = 0.05 sample decreases about three orders of magnitude. The remanent magnetization (Mr) of the x = 0.10 sample reaches 0.105 emu/g while the coercive field (Hc) is as high as 7.0 kOe. The (Nd, Zn) co-doping into BFO nanoparticles has been proved to be an effective way to improve the optical and multiferroic properties.

A broad theoretical investigation of R‐3, R3c, and R‐3c polymorphs of FeCrO3

“…Thus, only the ilmenite polymorph has presented a good potential for photocatalytic purposes, while the corundum and LNO polymorphs are indicated only for electronic or other applications. This behavior was widely reported for BiFeO 3 material, once such material presented low stability of the charge carriers resulting in a high recombination rate 71‐77 . It is noteworthy that the effective mass values are affected by several features, such as chemical composition, structural defects, and the symmetry of the material.…”

“…This behavior was widely reported for BiFeO 3 material, once such material presented low stability of the charge carriers resulting in a high recombination rate. [71][72][73][74][75][76][77] It is noteworthy that the effective mass values are affected by several features, such as chemical composition, structural defects, and the symmetry of the material. In particular, the materials investigated in this work present the same chemical composition and very similar symmetries due to the rhombohedral space group.…”

Theoretical Justification of Structural, Magnetoelectronic and Optical Properties in QFeO3 (Q = Bi, P, Sb): A First-Principles Study

“…Recent work on MF compounds and particularly ME coupling explains ways to improve these features through the development of double perovskites [41,42], heterojunction [43,44], doping [45,46], co-doping [47,48], and modulation of different properties [49,50]. In these cases, theoretical methods have been employed to address the magnetic, optical, electronic, and structural properties of the investigated compounds; however, experimental studies have explained the improvement in the magnetoelectric coupling of the investigated compounds.…”