A way to enhance the magnetic moment of multiferroic bismuth ferrite

Abstract

Transition metals, including Co, Cr, Ni and Mn, were doped into multiferroic Bi 0.8 La 0.2 Nb 0.01 Fe 0.99 O 3 samples that were fabricated by a solid state reaction. X-ray diffraction results show that only the Mn-doped sample did not contain any impurity phases, while the other transition metal dopants destroyed the phase stability of the pure Bi 0.8 La 0.2 Nb 0.01 Fe 0.99 O 3 phase and caused the formation of second phases. All the transition metal doped Bi 0.8 La 0.2 Nb 0.01 Fe 0.99 O 3 samples show significant enhancement in their magnetic moment at room temperature in comparison with the BiFeO 3 and Bi 0.8 La 0.2 Nb 0.01 Fe 0.99 O 3 samples without transition metal doping. This is explained by the formation of local ferrimagnetic ordering or ferromagnetic ordering in the transition metal doped Bi 0.8 La 0.2 Nb 0.01 Fe 0.99 O 3 , according to the electron configurations of the dopant transition metal ions.