Room temperature multiferroic properties of Ni-doped Aurivillus phase Bi5Ti3FeO15

Single-phase Aurivillius Bi5Ti3Fe0.5Ni0.5O15 (BTFN) ceramics were synthesized by the solid-state reaction method. The substitution of Ni for half Fe ions does not introduce magnetic impurity phase but increases magnetic moment more than two orders. The ferroelectric and magnetic Curie temperatures are determined to be 1100 K and 726 K. The room-temperature multiferroic behavior of the BTFN ceramics were demonstrated by the ferroelectric (2P(r) = 8.5 mu C/cm(2), 2E(c) = 74 kV/cm) and ferromagnetic (2M(r) = 27.86 m emu/g, 2H(c) = 553 Oe) measurements. The ferromagnetism can be ascribed to the aggregation of magnetic ions at the inner octahedra by Ni doping and the spin canting of magnetic-ion-based sublattices via the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. The present work suggests the possibility of doped Bi5Ti3FeO15 as a potential room-temperature multiferroic. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.