Magnetic and dielectric properties of Ce–Co substituted BiFeO3 multiferroics

Abstract

The present investigation shows the significant improvement in the structural, magnetic and dielectric properties of Bi1−xCexFe1−xCoxO3 (x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05) multiferroic materials, synthesized via an auto-combustion method. The synthesized materials are found to have structural distortion in the rhombohedral R3c structure as observed by x-ray diffraction. The high dielectric constant (~1850 at 2.5 MHz) was found for x = 0.05 multiferroic material from dielectric analysis. The presence of a weak doublet along with a sextet pattern in the Mossbauer spectra indicates the secondary phase. M–H loops of these materials demonstrate that Ce–Co doping in BiFeO3 enhances retentivity, coercivity, and saturation magnetization. Improvement in the magnetic and dielectric properties in Ce–Co doped BiFeO3 leads to multifunctional device application.