Effect of rare earth on multiferroic behavior of Bi rich BiFeO3 ceramic.

Rare earth doped (R=Ho, Gd and Ce) Bi1+xRxFeO3 for x = 0 and 0.1 ceramics were synthesized by solid state reaction route. XRD analysis showed that incorporation of rare earth (Gd, Ce) nucleates the development of orthorhombic grain growth. However, no structural transformation takes place in Ho doped sample. It is also observed that the materials shows room temperature enhanced ferroelectric polarization as well as ferromagnetization when rare earth ions are critically optimized in the respective composition formula. The value of leakage current greatly suppressed with incorporation of rare earth in BiFeO3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]