Effect of oxygen vacancies and cationic valence state on multiferroicity and magnetodielectric coupling in (1-x)BaTiO3.(x)LaFeO3 solid solution

A solid solution of (1-x) BaTiO3–(x)LaFeO3 (x=0, 0.007, 0.015, 0.031, 0.062) has been investigated for room temperature multiferroicity and magnetodielectric effect. The incorporation of La and Fe ions in ferroelectric BaTiO3 leads to increased lattice disorder and generation of oxygen vacancies that induces magnetism. A detailed correlated study using XRD, XPS and Raman spectroscopy is being reported. A typical ferromagnetic and ferroelectric nature of each sample are confirmed by M − H and P–E hysteresis loops, respectively at room temperature. Temperature dependent dielectric studies reveal the decrease of transition temperature from 137 0C for undoped to room temperature for increasing substitution. The changes in the dielectric property with applied magnetic field shows the indications of magnetodielectric effect. For x = 0.015, existence of both proper ferroelectric without lossy properties and ferromagnetic properties in a single tetragonal phase makes it a perfect room temperature multiferroic material. For this sample, the magnetodielectric coupling is the strongest with Magnetocapacitance of ~2.7% and Magneto loss of ~0.8% at 10kHz and 1T. The multiferroicity and the magnetodielectric effect exhibited by this material has been correlated to the structural properties, electric and magnetic properties, changes in valence states, and oxygen vacancy (Ov). [Display omitted] •Room temperature multiferroicity•Magnetodielectric effect•Correlation of structural and valence state studies•Structure correlated dielectric properties•Influence of oxygen vacancies and cationic valence state on magnetism•Bound magnetic polarons