Multiferroic properties of Bi5Ti3FeO15 ceramics prepared by hot-pressing methods

Single-phase Bi5Ti3FeO15 (BTFO) ceramics were synthesized by hot-pressing sintering process using sol-gel derived fine powders. X-ray diffraction indicates that the ceramics have expected four-layered Aurivillius structure with an orthorhombic symmetry. The ceramics are very dense and consist of plate-like grains. The BTFO ceramics exhibit typical ferroelectric hysteresis loops with a remnant polarization 2Pr of 14.1 µC/cm2 and a coercive field 2Ec of 142 kV/cm. Their dielectric constant and dissipation factor at 100 kHz are about 152.8 and 0.007, respectively. The remanent magnetization 2Mr of the BTFO ceramics is about 3.0 memu/g at room temperature. Both the dielectric loss and magnetic properties of the present BTFO ceramics are enhanced compared to those for pressureless sintered BTFO ceramics. This work provides a flexible way to fabricate high-performance multiferroic ceramics at room temperature.