Improved dielectric, magnetic and optical properties of Pr and Ti co-substituted BFO ceramics

Bi1-xPrxFe1-xTixO3 ceramics with x ≤ 0.20 were synthesized by solid state reaction method. XRD patterns confirm single phase formation for all the samples. Rietveld refinement of diffraction data reveals the structural transition from rhombohedral (R3c) phase for x ≤ 0.10 to orthorhombic (Pnma) phase for x ≥ 0.15. Temperature dependence dielectric plots exhibit two dielectric anomalies one at low temperature (∼250 °C) and other at high temperature (∼370 °C) corresponding to the magnetic transition temperature TN. Dielectric properties of samples were improved by controlling the amount of co doping to help ferroelectric measurements. Room temperature M − H measurements have shown an increase in magnetization with x which may be due to the partial destruction of spin cycloid of FeOFe network caused by Ti doping. FT-IR spectra exhibit a broad absorption band at 567 cm−1, whose broadness decreases with x. Absorption of light in the spectral range from 520 nm to 546 nm indicates an optical band gap in the visible range for these materials.