Room temperature dual ferroic behaviour of ball mill synthesized NdFeO3 orthoferrite

Abstract

Phase pure NdFeO3 has been achieved using high energy ball milling of oxide precursors with subsequent sintering. It is established that structural arrangement of NdFeO3 regulates the multifunctional feature of the material. Rietveld refinement of the room temperature X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the Fe-O-Fe bond angle significantly favors the super exchange interaction, which is predominantly antiferromagnetic in nature. Magnetization measurement illustrates antiferromagnetic behaviour with a weak ferromagnetic component caused by the canted nature of the Fe3+ spins at room temperature. Absorption bands in the visible ambit, apparent from the UV-Vis diffuse reflectance studies, is found due to the crystal ligand field of octahedral oxygen environment of Fe3+ ions. The direct band gap is estimated to be 2.39 eV from the diffuse reflectance spectrum. The lossy natured ferroelectric loop having a maximum polarization of 0.23 μC/cm2 at room temperature is found to be driven by the non-collinear magnetic structure with reverse Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya effect. Magnetic field has influence on the dielectric constant as evident from the impedance spectroscopy, indicating the strong coupling between ferroelectric and the magnetic structure of NdFeO3.