Influence of Pr3+ and Lu3+ co-doping on the magnetoelectric coupling response in BiFeO3 mutiferroic ceramics

Perovskite-type bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) multiferroic material is being considered as a potential candidate for magnetoelectric coupling and field-controlled multi-state memory applications. We report the Pr3+ and Lu3+ co-doping effect on the magnetoelectric coupling in BiFeO3 ceramics. In this study, Bi0.94Pr0.06FeO3 (BPO), Bi0.94Lu0.06FeO3 (BLO), and Bi0.94Pr0.03Lu0.03FeO3 (BPLO) ceramics were synthesized by conventional solid-state ceramic synthesis technique. The BPO sample displayed higher saturation magnetization as compared to BLO and BPLO samples which may be due to canting of spin cycloid of BFO and also due to the discrepancy between the antiparallel sublattice of Fe3+/Fe2+, the value of ferroelectric polarization of the BPO sample was found to be better than BLO and BPLO samples. However, the magnetocapacitance (MC) of the BPLO sample is found to be MC ~ 2.3% which is higher than that of BLO (MC ~ 1.4%) and BPO (MC ~ 1.7%) samples. In addition, the enhanced value of magnetoelectric coupling coefficient (αE) has been obtained for the BPLO sample. Overall, our results indicate that BPLO sample displays interesting magnetoelectric response for device applications.