Structural transition, magnetic and optical properties of Pr and Ti co-doped BiFeO3 ceramics

•All the compositions, synthesized by solid state reaction method, have shown solid solution formation.•Structural transition from rhombohedral (R3c) phase to orthorhombic (Pnma) phase has been observed with increasing x.•Magnetization has been found to increase with increasing dopant concentrations in BFO.•Strong absorption of light in the wavelength range 400–700 nm indicates applications of these materials in optoelectronic devices.

Bi1−xPrxFe1−xTixO3 ceramics with x=0.00, 0.10 and 0.20 were synthesized by a solid state reaction method. Rietveld fitting of the diffraction data reveals structural transition from rhombohedral phase (R3c) for x≤0.10 to orthorhombic phase (Pnma) for x=0.20. Room temperature M–H hysteresis measurements reveal that magnetization increases due to the structural distortion and partial destruction of spin cycloid caused by co-doping in BiFeO3 ceramics. FT-IR spectra exhibit broad absorption bands, which may be due to the overlapping of Fe–O and Bi–O vibrations in FeO6 octahedra of these ceramics. UV–visible spectroscopy results show strong absorption of light in the spectral range of 480–640 nm, indicating optical band gap in the visible region for these samples.