Room temperature multiferroic and magnetodielectric properties in Sm and Sc co-doped BiFeO3 ceramics

In this work, Sm and Sc co-doped Bi1-xSmxFe1-yScyO3 (x = 0.00-0.20; y = 0.03) ceramics are fabricated by a rapid liquid phase sintering method, in order to develop single-phase multiferroics with large magnetization and polarization. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopic studies reveal that the ceramics are single-phase with a structural transition from rhombohedral to orthorhombic structures near x = 0.15. Electric and magnetic measurement results indicate that the transition significantly enhances the multiferroic properties, which stems from the Sm/Sc doping induced collapse of space-modulated spin structure and internal structural distortion. At an optimized composition of Bi0.85Sm0.15Fe0.97Sc0.03O3 (x = 0.15), a remanent polarization of 16.5 mu C cm(-2), a magnetization 0.2020 emu g(-1), and a magnetodielectric effect of 0.46% can be obtained. These results clearly demonstrate a potential application for Sm/Sc doped BiFeO3 ceramics in the field of multiferroic devices.