Enhanced electrical properties in multiferroic BiFeO3 ceramics co-doped by La3+ and V5+

La3+ and V5+ co-doped Bi0.85La0.15Fe1-xVxO3 (BLFVx, x = 0-0.1) ceramics were prepared by a rapid liquid sintering technique. The effects of the V5+-doping content on the structure and electrical properties of BLFVx ceramics were investigated. In the range of the V5+ content x from 0 to 0.03, BLFVx ceramics had a polycrystalline perovskite structure with tiny residual Bi2O3, while an impurity phase appeared for x > 0.03. As the x increased from 0 to 0.1, both the leakage current density and the dielectric loss (tan delta) for BLFVx ceramics decreased gradually, while the dielectric constant (epsilon(r)) first increased and then decreased gradually in this process, reaching a maximum value of 273 for x = 0.03. Among the BLFVx ceramics, the BLFVx=0.01 ceramic showed a well-saturated hysteresis loop with large remanent polarization (P-r) of 39.4 mu C cm(-2) and a low coercive electric field (E-c) of +/- 43.1 kV cm(-1) under an applied electric field of +/- 75 kV cm(-1). In addition, these ceramics exhibited good anti-fatigue characteristics after 2 x 10(10) read/write polarization cycles. These suggested that La3+ and V5+ co-doping was beneficial for enhancing the dielectric, ferroelectric and anti-fatigue properties of the BLFVx ceramics.