Investigations on structural optical magnetic and dielectric properties of rare earth transition metal doped lanthanum ferrite perovskites

Abstract

LaFeO3 is a perovskite structured multiferroic material as well as one of the important ReFeO3 orthoferrite family, it is known to be antiferromagnetic nature at Neel temperature (TN) of 740 K. It has interesting structural, and physical properties such as, optical, magnetic properties. Thus, it is utilized for various technological applications such as spintronics, magnetic memory storage devices, gas sensors, capacitors, magnetic tunable switches and photo catalysis. LaFeO3 compounds exhibit mixed conductivity i.e. combination of electronic and ionic conductivity which assist to increase the performance of sensors, SOFC, magnetic storage device applications. Generally, crystal structure, crystallite size, and porosity of the materials are influenced by the synthesis methods which consequently have an effect on applications of LaFeO3. Normally, LaFeO3 compounds are synthesized by high temperature solid state reaction (HT-SSR) method. Which requires higher temperature calcination for long duration with intermediate grindings thus results in homogeneity mixture of metal oxides having high porosity with reduction in particle size. Further, the incorporation of various dopants/substituents tends to modify their physical properties due to its flexible crystallographic structure. Most of the reports have focused on their sensing and catalytic behaviour, however studies regarding the variation or improvement in their magnetic property with respect to doping is seldom available. In the present investigation, the effect of rare earth and transition metal ions doped - LaFeO3 and their structural, attracted physical properties such as optical, magnetic and dielectric behaviour are demonstrated. newline