The magnetoelectric coupling in rhombohedral-tetragonal phases coexisted Bi0.84Ba0.20FeO3

Ba doped Bi1.04-xBaxFeO3 ceramics with x up to 0.30 have been prepared by the tartaric acid modified sol-gel method. The X ray diffraction patterns show that the structure transforms from rhombohedral to tetragonal with increasing the Ba substitution concentration from 10% to 30% and the coexistence of distorted rhombohedral and tetragonal phases in 20% Ba substituted BiFeO3, which was further confirmed by the Raman spectra. Bi0.84Ba0.20FeO3 exhibits the highest magnetization (1.6 emu/g under magnetic field of 12 kOe) compared with the other samples of different Ba substitution concentration. Significant enhancement of the ferroelectricity has been observed in 20% and 30% Ba substituted BiFeO3 with saturate polarization close to 6.6 μC/cm2 for Bi0.74Ba0.30FeO3. The magnetoelectric coupling of Bi0.84Ba0.20FeO3 has been measured and the maximum decrease of magnetization under magnetic field of 9.8 kOe was about 0.06 emu/g with increasing applied electric field to 11 kV/cm, and the magnetoelectric coefficient is 1.5×10-12 s/m.