Effect of 3d transition metal doping on the structural, electronic, & magnetic properties of BiCoO3 using first principles study

Abstract

In this paper, the influence of 3d transition metal (TM) dopants in BiCoO3 (BCO) having C-type antiferromagnetism has been studied using first principles calculation. The value of c/a ratio is found to improve for Sc, V, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and Zn doping in BCO which indicates an increase in the tetragonality ratio upon introduction of these dopants in BCO. The formation energy calculations pointed out that it is easier to incorporate the TM atoms having number of d atoms lesser than that of Co (d < 7) in BCO. The electronic, and magnetic properties were studied and it was found that the electron/hole traps are introduced due to the presence of 3d TM dopant in BCO. The partial density of states reveal that V, Ni and Zn doped BCO exhibit half metallic characteristics with a lower band gap value among the other TM doped BCO systems. It was interesting to note that the presence of states in both spins at Fermi level due to Cu doping leads to a transition of BCO towards metallic behaviour in contrast to pure BCO having a clear band gap of 1.77 eV. The net magnetization was found to arise due to TM doping at Co site which may be attributed to the uncompensated Co spins and is mainly localized on the TM dopant. Successive spin polarization model (SSP model) was used to explain the net magnetization in the system due to 3d TM dopants in BCO system. The electron localization function plots also reveal that for d < 5 the electrons are localised near the TM metal ions and for d > 5 the localization impacts the near neighbouring Co ions. From this study, it is suggested that the magnetic and electronic properties of BCO system, can be tuned by 3d TM doping which has vast potential in photovoltaic and magneto-electric applications.