Abstract
Facile sol-gel synthesis method was used to prepare Selenium (Se) and Lanthanum (La) co-doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles for soft and hard ferromagnetic applications. La and Se doped bismuth ferrite nanostructures were fabricated using facile double-solvent sol-gel technique for, BiFe1-xSexO3 (BFSex) and Bi0.92La.08Fe1-xSexO3 (L8Sex), (where, x=0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) nanocomposites. The structural, morphological and magnetic properties of BFSex and L8Sex were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. Structural and morphological analysis reveals that BFSex and L8Sex transform from perovskite rhombohedral crystal structure of pure BiFeO3 to orthorhombic crystal structure by the co-substitution of Se and La. The SEM results revealed that the shape of the nanocomposites is continuously changed with increasing Se concentration starting first from nanoparticles shape to needle-like to the nanosheets and ending up to the self-growth flower-like structure under the same synthesis conditions. The magnetization of BFSex and L8Sex is large at initial Se concentration but the coercivity and squareness of the magnetic hysteresis increase with increases in Se concentration. The results revealed that various co-doped BFO novel nanostructures can be synthesized using simple and economical method for variable magnetic properties.
Highlights
The morphological analysis of BFSex and LxSex nanocomposites was done by using the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and is shown in Figures 2 and 3, respectively
The SEM images reveal that the shape of the nanostructure is continuously changed upon increasing the Se concentration, for example, it is a porous nanoparticles structure when we only add 10% of Se into the pure BiFe O3 (BFO) nanoparticles and is changed to an intermediate phase consisting of porous nanoparticles, nano-needles and nanosheets formation when the Selenium doping is increased from 10% to 25% which is attributes to increase in the volume of the unit cell along with increase in the associated volume Gibb’s free energy
When the concentration of Se is increased to 100%, the nanosheets are selfassembled in the form of a flower-like shape with nanosheets acting like the petals of the flower
Summary
A lot of research effort has been devoted to bismuth ferrites BiFe O3 (BFO) owing to the fact that it is the only material which naturally possesses multiferroic properties at roomtemperature. It has attracted great interest due to various applications in the fields of radio and memory devices, digital recording, sensors, smart devices, etc. BFO shows both, the ferroelectricity with high curie temperature (TC=1106 K) and anti-ferromagnetism with high Neel temperature (TN=650 K). It is known to have a rhombohedrally distorted perovskite structure corresponding to R3c space group with the compound formula represented by ABO3.6–8. The ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties can be increased by substitution of A-site cation with rare earth elements or by replacing the B-site cation with transition metals and rare earth elements.. The ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties can be increased by substitution of A-site cation with rare earth elements or by replacing the B-site cation with transition metals and rare earth elements.14–16 The magnetic effects of Se doped BFO and La and Se co-doped BFO at A and B sites respectively associated with various nanostructures is lacking. We have addressed these issues and fabricated various nanostructures with different shapes depending on the Se concentration in Se-doped BFO and La and Se co-doped BFO. La and Se co-doping becomes an important parameter controlling the properties of the nanostructure with interesting magnetic properties
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