Tailoring domain structure through manganese to modify the ferroelectricity, strain and magnetic properties of lead-free BiFeO3-based multiferroic ceramics

Highlights: • Obtained significant negative strain and developed domain structure after Mn incorporation. • Tailoring domain structures and increasing the amount of non-180° ferroelectric domain. • Better understanding of the relationship between the domain structure and enhanced macro-properties. Manganese-modified BiFeO₃-based ceramics with typical perovskite structure were fabricated by solid-state reaction method with non-quenched processing. The effects of Mn addition on ferroelectric, strain, magnetic properties as well as domain structure were intensively investigated. The average negative strain significantly increased from ∼0.02% to ∼0.10% after Mn incorporation. Piezoresponse force microscope (PFM) analysis revealed that Mn ions can tune ferroelectric domain heavily, and increase the amount of non-180° ferroelectric domain. Raman spectra demonstrated that the formation of ferroelectric domain and enhanced magnetic properties mainly resulted from the strengthened distortion of octahedral due to Mn addition. Our work provides a better understanding of the correlation between the domain structure and macro-properties in Mn-modified BFO-based multiferroic ceramics.