Origin of room temperature weak-ferromagnetism in antiferromagnetic Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 ceramic

We report the origin of room temperature weak ferromagnetic behavior of polycrystalline Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 (PFW) powder. The structure and magnetic properties of the ceramic powder prepared by a Columbite method were characterized by X-ray and neutron diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy and magnetization measurements. Rietveld analysis of diffraction data confirm the formation of single phase PFW, without traces of any parasitic pyrochlore phase. PFW was found to crystallize in the cubic structure at room temperature. The Rietveld refinement of neutron diffraction data measured at room temperature confirmed the G-type antiferromagnetic structure of PFW in our sample. However, along with the antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering of the Fe spins, we have observed the existence of weak ferromagnetism at room temperature through: (i) a clear opening of hysteresis (M–H) loop, (ii) bifurcation of the field cooled and zero-field cooled susceptibility; supported by Mössbauer spectroscopy results. The P–E loop measurements showed a non-linear slim hysteresis loop at room temperature due to the electronic conduction through the local inhomogeneities in the PFW crystallites and the inter-particle regions. By corroborating all the magnetic measurements, especially the spin glass nature of the sample, with the conduction behavior of the sample, we report here that the observed ferromagnetism originates at these local inhomogeneous regions in the sample, where the Fe-spins are not perfectly aligned antiferromagnetically due to the compositional disordering.