Effect of Gd-substitution on the ferroelectric and magnetic properties of BiFeO3 processed by high-energy ball milling

• Gd-substituted in BiFeO3 was prepared by high energy ball milling.
• Effect of Gd doping on structural, electrical and magnetic properties were studied.
• M-H loops shows the antiferromagnetic nature of the samples.

Multiferroic BiFeO3 was synthesized by means of high-energy ball milling (HEBM) followed by thermal annealing at various temperatures and the effect of Gd3+ substitution (x=0.0–0.20) at Bi3+ site was investigated in this study. It is found that the Gd-substitution tends to decrease the impurity phases and the crystallization of single phase BiFeO3 is observed at x=0.1. Scanning electron micrograph of Bi1−xGdxFeO3 sintered sample indicated a decrease in particle size and change in shape with increasing x. For all the studied samples, the measured dielectric constant values tend to increase from 110 (x=0.0) to 250 (x=0.10). The dielectric loss is found to be more for the pure BiFeO3 as compared to the Bi1−xGdxFeO3. Ferroelectric loops show a maximum polarization of 1.63 μC/cm2 for the Bi0.9Gd0.1FeO3. Magnetization (M) versus magnetic field (H) hysteresis loops at 300 K BiFeO3 and Bi0.9Gd0.1FeO3 demonstrated non-saturated loops, suggesting the antiferromagnetic nature of the samples. The M–H behavior of the Bi1−xGdxFeO3 at 300 K shows the antiferromagnetic nature of the samples. The estimated magnetization value at 10 kOe for the Bi0.9Gd0.1FeO3 sample (0.23 emu/g) is found to be higher than that of the pure BiFeO3 (0.037 emu/g).