Reply to the 'Comment on the paper Structural, dielectric, thermal and electrical characteristics of lead-free double perovskite: BiHoZnCeO6 by M. Padhy, SK Dehury, RNP Choudhary, and PGR Achary, and published in Applied Physics A (2020) 126:655'

Double pervoskite BiHoZnCeO6 (BHZCO) has been synthesized by the cost-effective solid state reaction method. It is characterized by a combination of techniques including powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), dielectric, thermal analysis, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The fundamental structural symmetry and the cell parameter refinement for the BHZCO is investigated by analyzing the PXRD data with the help of widely used MAUD software. As per the PXRD-analysis, the Fig. 1a and b of the published paper Applied Physics A (2020) 126:655, clearly shows that it crystallizes with an orthorhombic crystal lattice with space group of Pca2(1), whose profile resembles with another bismuth-based double pervoskite Bi2WO6; crystallography open database (COD) ID: 2,108,252. However, in the CP paper, the author claims that BHZCO should have the cubic Fm-3m crystal structure, surprisingly claims that the phase is CeO2:Bi,Ho,Zn with unknown amount of dopants. Hence, in the present communication attempts have been made to compare both the cell structures for the BHZCO.

Automated summary

Double pervoskite BiHoZnCeO6 (BHZCO) is synthesized using the solid state reaction method and characterized by various techniques. The crystal structure of BHZCO is determined to be orthorhombic with space group Pca2(1), similar to Bi2WO6. The claim of BHZCO having cubic Fm-3m crystal structure in a previous paper is contradicted by the findings of this study.