Point Defects in Rare-Earth Perovskite Systems BaMO3 (M = Ce, Pr and Tb) on Dielectric and Magnetic Behaviors

Abstract

This study focused on the rare-earth hetero-valent substituted perovskite BaMO3 (M = Ce, Pr and Tb) which expected to show magnetoelectric response. In general, diamagnetic feature is presented in the 4f 0 BaCeO3 system down to 2 K which is chosen as a reference in the study while BaPrO3 (4f 1) and BaTbO3 (4f 7) display antiferromagnetic phase transition at TN = 11.7 and 33.2 K, respectively, measured by MPMS magnetometer. At high oxygen partial pressure and donor ion-substitution (Nb5+), the BaMO3 systems demonstrate a similar defect chemistry to titanate perovskite which compensated by Ba-vacancy. Dielectric relaxation is detected for the doublet (BaPrO3 and BaTbO3) at the antiferromagnetic phase transition region. In order to examine the magnetoelectric response, the 8 Tesla of magnetic field is applied to the samples during the dielectric measurement. BaTbO3 shows a modest magnetoelectric response around 0.2% at the antiferromagnetic phase transition while that of BaPrO3 is silent. The activation energies derived from Arrhenius equation are reported to be in the range of 0.2 − 0.6 eV.