Nonmagnetic Fe-site doping of BiFeO3 multiferroic ceramics

In this paper, we show that a pure single phase by doping Fe-site of BiFeO3 (BFO) using tetravalent Zr4+ ions can be achieved by introducing cation (Bi3+) vacancies. The structural analysis reveals that the ferroelectric nature of BFO should be weakly affected by 10% of Zr4+ doping as the c/a ratio and the Curie temperature T-C remain roughly unchanged compared to that of pure BFO. In contrast, the magnetic properties are affected as a weak ferromagnetism and a change of Neel temperature T-N are observed. Beyond the double-exchange interactions arising from the creation of Fe2+, we propose another simple model inducing a local ferromagnetic coupling rather than an antiferromagnetic which considers the replacement of the magnetically active Fe3+, time to time, by a nonactive Zr4+. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3327885]