Substitution driven optical and magnetic properties of neodymium and nickel doped BiFeO3 ceramics for spintronics applications

Single phase BiFeO₃ and Bi_1-XNd_XFe_0.98Ni_0.02O₃ (x=0.01, 0.03 and 0.05) ceramics were prepared by sol-gel method to investigate the effect of neodymium and nickel substitution on the structural, optical, magnetic, and magnetoelectric properties. The X-ray diffraction pattern of single phase and doped samples confirms the formation of pure rhombohedral structure. The optical absorption study reveals that the absorption capacity has significantly increased for the doped samples compared to undoped and it increases as the Nd doping is increased. The absorption capacity is especially in the visible light region. Doped samples demonstrated well saturated magnetic hysteresis loops and this enhanced feature is attributed to the distortion in the spin cycloid structure after doping. The improved magnetoelectric coupling was observed in doped bismuth ferrite samples which are suitable candidate for spintronics and photo-catalytic applications.