Tailoring of dielectric, ferroelectric, and optical properties of Bi0.99Nd0.1Fe2O3/ZnO nanocomposite at room temperature

Abstract

We observe the fine-tuning of electrical and optical properties in a composite nanoparticle system consisting of varying weight fractions of semiconducting ZnO grains (x) embedded into Nd-doped multiferroic Bi0.99Nd0.1Fe2O3 matrix and annealed at 500 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is used to validate the phase which further reveals the existence of cubic ZnO phases and rhombohedral BFO with some impurity phases. With the aid of SEM and EDX, the morphological and elemental composition of grains are found to be affected by ZnO nanoparticles. To understand the nature of dielectric response impedance analysis is performed which reveals the presence of large resistance offered by a composite maximum of 46.8 KΩ at x = 10 %. The enhancement in dielectric constant and dielectric loss is observed at higher concentrations for (x = 5 %). The Ferroelectric investigation shows that the maximum polarization achieved at low frequency for x = 10 % is 22.13 μc/cm2. The optical band gap in the composite sample exhibits significant dependence on ZnO concentrations, thus indicating potential application in optoelectronic devices.