Nanocomposite approach to couple magnetic and electric ordering

Abstract

Multiferroic materials with co-existence of two or more ferroic orders hold utmost significance for the multifunctional device application, especially for data storage. Combining a ferromagnetic material with a ferroelectric material at nanoscale is one of the promising approaches to achieve multiferroicity. The reduction of the materials size to nanometer range brings out the quantum mechanical effect that impact the physical properties especially electron transport mechanism. Nanofibers due to their higher aspect ratio among the nonmaterial are interesting candidates and are considered for present study. Present work focuses on the nanocomposite approach to bring out a material with magnetic and electric ordering. The nanofibers of certain rare earth orthoferrites (LuFeO3 and HoFeO3), known multiferroic BiFeO3 and established ferroelectric BaTiO3 were prepared using electrospinning a fiber fabrication technique. The prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. Among the prepared sample HoFeO3 with Ho of highest magnetic moment of 10 μB were chosen as magnetic parent compound and combined with ferroelectric BaTiO3 to make composite. The composite and heterostructure were further characterized by XRD, Reitveld refinement, detailed deconvoluted Raman spectra with assignments of modes in detail. The analysis revealed that the Composite incorporates HoFeO3 and BaTiO3 in 54% and 46% respectively and in heterostructure it is 30% and 70% for HoFeO3 and BaTiO3 respectively. The Ti sift in the TiO6 octahedra of composite and heterostructure compared to uncoupled BTO shows that the incorporation of HFO resulted in the distortion of the structure. The M – H loop and P – E loop confirms the ferroelectric and magnetic ordering of prepared samples.