Engineering room temperature multiferroicity and temperature dependent dielectric properties of Cr doped BaTiO₃ ceramics

The coexistence of ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism, and piezoelectricity at room temperature in BaTi1-xCrxO3 (0 <= x <= 0.06) nanostructures is interesting and leads to the multiferroic nature of system. Sol-gel auto-combustion technique has been used for the synthesis of nanostructures. The XRD patterns along with Rietveld refinement analysis, confirm that the samples possess parent tetragonal perovskite structure in the P4mm space group. The oxygen vacancies stoichiometry ratio was estimated through XPS studies. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirms the large grain size in the doped sample. The study of leakage current density reveals an increase in its value with the increase in Cr content due to defects induced in the system. P-E measurements confirm the ferroelectric nature of the samples that diminishes in the doped samples due to the high leakage current. Moreover, the estimated value of energy efficiency (eta) was found to be maximum for the undoped sample. The undoped BaTiO3 has a diamagnetic character that is partially altered into weak ferromagnetic under the Cr-doping at the expense of decreasing polarization parameters. The temperature-dependent dielectric constant shows all characteristics of phase transitions in the samples. The doping of Cr enhances the ferroelectric to paraelectric phase transition temperature (T-c). The piezoelectricity remains preserved in the doped samples. Thus, the coexistence of ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism, and piezoelectricity at room temperature finalizes the multiferroic nature of the synthesized samples.