Structural and multiferroic properties of Pr and Ti co-doped BiFeO3 ceramics

Bi0.9Pr0.1FeO3 (BPF), BiFe0.9Ti0.1O3 (BFT), Bi0.9Pr0.1Fe0.9Ti0.1O3 (BPFT-10), and Bi0.9Pr0.1Fe0.95Ti0.05O3 (BPFT-5) ceramics are prepared for a comparison study. X-ray diffraction indicates that all of the samples crystallize in rhombohedral structures with R3c symmetry. The Pr and Ti co-doped samples show an especially low dielectric loss of 0.02-0.04 throughout the entire investigated frequency range. A markedly improved polarization hysteresis loop is successfully achieved for samples BPFT-10 and BPFT-5, and their remnant polarization Pr values are 0.11 and 0.29 μC/cm2, respectively. Magnetic measurements indicate that the substitution of Ti4+ for Fe3+ improves the ferromagnetic properties due to the suppression of the spiral spin structure. A remnant magnetization Mr of 0.176 emu/g was observed for BPFT-10 at 5 K.