Electrical response with temperature and magnetoelectric coupling of multiferroic nanocomposites

Abstract

Magnetoelectric Zn0.5Co0.5Fe2O4 – PbZr0.58Ti0.42O3 nanocomposites are synthesized considering chemical reaction process at low temperature and solid-state reaction technique. Structural characterization is performed by X-ray diffraction analysis, which shows two types of nanometric grains coexisting simultaneously. The materials surface morphology displays that the fabrication method is quite effective for preparation of nanocomposites. Crystallite size of different constituent phases is observed to in manometer range. The dependency of temperature on electrical response and dielectric constant of nanocomposites are analyzed with a variation of frequency. The dielectric constant with temperature decreases attributing the thermal excitation of electrons. Moreover, we have evaluated the magnetoelectric coefficient in two configurations (longitudinal and transverse) with increasing applied magnetic field. The coupling coefficient is observed to ∼0.8 mV/cm-Oe in transverse configuration, whereas in longitudinal configuration it is increasing in behavior with measured magnetic field. At room temperature, the observing magnetoelectric coupling may be as a cause of magnetic field dependent strain transfer to the piezoelectric phase to the piezomagnetic phase of the nanocomposites.