Synthesis and Characterization of Rare Earth modified PbTiO3 and NiFe2O4 composites for Magnetoelectric Properties

Abstract

Multiferroics are materials in which ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism co-exist simultaneously in a single phase. The tunning feature of these materials, i.e., we can command the magnetic characteristics of these materials by tuning the electric field or vice versa, gives them an edge over the other materials in the field of material sciences. The eventual crosscoupling between its properties and its extensive potential for new multifunctional devices grabbed the attention of researchers. These materials are important from a fundamental and application point of view and are widely used in tunable devices, sensors, memory devices, photovoltaic devices, ultrahigh-speed telecommunication, storage and information processing, transducers, etc. Among all ferroelectric perovskites, PbTiO3 is a very important ferroelectric due to its large dielectric constant and highest ferroelectric transition temperature. For this research work, we modified PbTiO3 with Nd3+ substitution at the A-site. It has been reported that the substitution of rare earth ions lowers the ferroelectric transition temperature and leakage current. In this research work, the effect of sintering temperature on the structural, ferroelectric, and conduction behavior of Pb0.75Nd0.25TiO3 ceramics has been reported. We also studied the effect of Nd3+ modification on the magnetic and magneto-dielectric properties of samples. The effect of NiFe2O4 concentration on the dielectric and conduction behavior of the samples has also been reported. For the synthesis of PbTiO3, we employed the solid-state reaction method, and for the synthesis of NiFe2O4, the auto combustion method was used. After this, we mixed the PbTiO3 and NiFe2O4 composites in stoichiometric proportion by using the mechanical mixing method to obtain the sample of xNd0.25Pb0.75TiO3-(1-x)NiFe2O4 composites (where x = 0.40, 0.42, 0.44, 0.46, 0.48, and 0.50). newline