Effects of Gd and Co doping on the electrical and ferromagnetism properties of BiFeO3 ceramics

Abstract

Multiferroic Bi0.95Gd0.05Fe1-xCoxO3 (x= 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) ceramics were prepared by rapid liquid phase sintering method. We studied effect of Gd and Co doping on the structure, electrical and ferromagnetism properties of BiFeO3 ceramics. The structure and morphology of BiFeO3 ceramics are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show that all the peaks for Bi0.95Gd0.05Fe1-xCoxO3 (x= 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) samples can be indexed according to the crystal structure of pure BiFeO3. And X-ray diffraction analysis reveals a phase transition in Gd-Co codoped BiFeO3 ceramics when x is larger than 0.1.The current densities of all samples measured at room temperature are approximately three orders of magnitude lower than that of BFO ceramic, and the leakage current of the ceramics at room temperature exhibits two distinctive conduction behaviors: Ohmic conduction and space charge limited (SCL) conduction mechanism.For all the samples studied here, the dielectric constant and dielectric loss decrease with the increase of frequency in a range from 1 kHz to 1 MHz. The dielectric constants of Bi0.95Gd0.05Fe1-xCoxO3 (x= 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15,0.2) samples are nearly 1.9, 2.68, 3.85, 5.3, and 6 times larger than that of pure BiFeO3 (εr= 61.2) ceramic at 1 kHz, respectively. And the dielectric losses of Bi0.95Gd0.05Fe1-xCoxO3 samples become smaller than that of BFO ceramic.The magnetic measurements show that all the samples possess strong ferromagnetism at room temperature expect BiFeO3 and Bi0.95Gd0.05FeO3 which are weakly ferromagnetic. Under an external magnetic field of 30 kOe, the values of Mr of Bi0.95Gd0.05Fe1-xCoxO3 are 34, 60, 105, 103 and 180 times that of BiFeO3, respectively.