Investigation of BaTiO3/ Cu1-xMgxFe2O4 nano-multiferroic composites

Abstract

In the present work, the citrate precursor approach has been used to generate nano-particle ferrites with the chemical composition Cu1-xMgxFe2O4 (where x = 0.0, 0.5, and 1). Multiferroic composites of BaTiO3 along with the three samples of Cu-Mg ferrites have been prepared using two percentages of BaTiO3 (30 % and 70 %) with each one of the three ferrites. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) have been used to characterize the samples under investigation, indicating that the intended samples have formed without impurities. The average particle size of the samples has been estimated from the XRD patterns (64.1 nm for BaTiO3, 85.8 nm for CuFe2O4, 83.5 nm for Cu0.5Mg0.5Fe2O4 and 89.2 nm for MgFe2O4) and have been fairly verified using a transmission electron microscope (TEM) too. A vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) has been used to study the magnetic characteristics; where the maximum saturation magnetization is recorded for the Mg ferrite as 26.549 emu/g and the maximum coercive field is found for the Cu ferrite as 1085.13G. A variation of the examined samples from hard to soft ferrite has been noticed by introducing Mg such that we can conclude that the Cu0.5Mg0.5Fe2O4 and MgFe2O4 samples may be suitable for high-frequency devices. The decrease in magnetic properties with introducing BaTiO3 has been recorded too. The ferroelectric properties have been investigated and the results show a ferroelectric behavior of BaTiO3 that reveals its nanostructure. An enhancement of conduction current has been recorded by the addition of CuFe2O4, MgFe2O4, and Cu0.5Mg0.5Fe2O4. The maximum values of conduction current have been achieved the pure Mg ferrite and at the samples containing 70 % ferrites in the composite samples in agreement with literature. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the samples exhibiting lossy capacitor behavior may be used as piezoelectric actuators.