Ferro- and magneto-electric characteristics in YFeO3−Y3Fe5O12 nanocomposites

The magnetoelectric (ME) nanocomposite material contain ferromagnetic phase of yttrium iron garnet (Y3Fe5O12) and ferroelectric phase of yttrium perovskite ferrite (YFeO3) with an equation (x)YFeO3 + (1 − x)Y3Fe5O12 (x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.0) is synthesized by sol-gel auto combustion method. The composite powder obtained by two phases of composite material sintered at 1100 °C for 6 h. The prepared samples were investigated by using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) to study the structural properties, that confirm the existence of two phases of Y3Fe5O12 and YFeO3. The crystallite size of material decreased from 23 to 13 nm with increasing the concentration of YFeO3 in composite. The morphological investigation of samples was studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy that gives size, shape and distribution of grains in material and confirmed that material has nano-crystalline in nature. Saturation magnetization (Ms) studied by using vibrating sample magnetometer shows the decrement in its value from 23.9 to 0.48 emu/g with the increase in YFeO3 content. Maximum magnetoelectric coefficient (αME) of 10.711 mv/cm-Oe is observed for composition x = 0.50. Similarly, ferroelectric characteristics of sample such as dielectric constant and dielectric loss were measured in the frequency range 20 Hz to 10 MHz at room temperature. The value of dielectric constant is decreases with increasing frequency and ferroelectric hysteresis loop at room temperature is study by using P-E loop tracer it's nature is unsaturated due to presence of Y3Fe5O12 phase.