MnO2-doping induced enhanced multiferroicity in Bi0.83Sm0.17Fe0.95Sc0.05O3 ceramics

Abstract

Multiferroic material BiFeO3 (BFO) that possesses spin and dipole orders simultaneously at ambient temperature shows great potential in multi-state memory and spintronic devices. Nevertheless, the presence of low polarization and weak magnetism in ceramics heavily restricts their applications. Here, the charge compensation method was utilized to reduce leakage current and enhance dielectric breakdown strength (Eb) by introducing MnO2 in Bi0.83Sm0.17Fe0.95Sc0.05O3 ceramics. It was revealed that all the ceramics have the coexistence of polar R3c and nonpolar Pnma phases. With increasing MnO2, Eb is significantly improved, leading to the enhanced ferroelectric polarization. A high remanent polarization of ≈51.54 μC/cm2 was achieved in the composition with 0.9 wt. % MnO2 doping, which is the maximum in the reported BFO-based ceramics. Meanwhile, a rather high remanent magnetization of ≈0.31 emu/g was obtained in the same compound. Therefore, this work reveals an interesting route to tailor BFO-based ceramics toward enhanced multiferroicity.