A promising sol–gel route to suppress pyrochlore phase during the synthesis of multiferroic Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 using inorganic salts

This paper reports a promising route to synthesize multiferroic Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 by sol–gel method with inorganic salts of (CH3COO)2Pb·H2O, Fe(NO3)3·9H2O, and (NH4)5H5[H2(WO4)6]·H2O. The pyrochlore phase was largely suppressed by increasing the calcination temperature, and high purity of perovskite phase was obtained at 725 °C which is much lower than the temperature used in other synthesizing processes. Microstructural investigations revealed that the synthesized Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 particles have cubic morphology and superlattice crystal structure. The formation of Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 was not sensitive to the pH value of the solution, which is another advantage of this sol–gel method.