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Ion dopants tuning the interband electronic structure for huge saturated ferroelectric polarization in bismuth ferrite films

  • Original Paper: Sol-gel and hybrid materials for dielectric, electronic, magnetic and ferroelectric applications
  • Published:
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Abstract

Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3, BFO) as a prototype multiferroic has been extensively studied in past years; however, there are several key issues not to be clearly expressed. Especially, the relationship of structure and physical properties still remains obscure. In this case, the interband electronic structure of BFO was elaborately manipulated by appropriation dopants of Ni and Gd to realize the huge saturated ferroelectric polarization in the polycrystalline films. For instance, a huge saturated polarization PS of 96 μC/cm2 and remnant polarization Pr of 91 μC/cm2 were achieved in Bi0.925Gd0.075Fe0.95Ni0.05O3 film. The results and analysis show that the alteration in the interband electronic structure and the improvement of morphology derived from the ion doping effect indeed play key roles on the improved ferroelectric property of the doped BFO films. The decreased leakage current density and thereby the enhanced ferroelectric polarization in the doped BFO films should be attributed to the decrease in both Fermi level and Urbach energy closely related with the defects, as well as the improved surface uniformity and compactness of the films. Finally, the mechanism and relationship of structure and physical properties in BFO were systemically analyzed and discussed.

The ferroelectric polarization for pure and doped BiFeO3 films

Highlights

  • The interband electronic structure of BiFeO3 was elaborately manipulated by appropriation dopants to realize the huge saturated polarization in the polycrystalline films.

  • A huge saturated polarization PS of 96 μC/cm2 was achieved in Bi0.925Gd0.075Fe0.95Ni0.05O3 film.

  • The mechanism and relationship of electronic structure and physical properties in BiFeO3 were systemically analyzed and discussed.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support by the Key Research & Development Project of Shannxi Province (No. 2017GY-031) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51272204) are gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank Ms. Dai and Mr. Ma for their help in using FE-SEM at International Center for Dielectric Research (ICDR), Xi’an Jiaotong University, China.

Author contributions

TTY conceived and carried out the experiments. TTY and JW analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education & International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, P. R. China

    Tiantian Yang, Jie Wei, Zhibin Lv, Yaxin Guo & Zhuo Xu

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  1. Tiantian Yang
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  2. Jie Wei
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Correspondence to Jie Wei.

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Yang, T., Wei, J., Lv, Z. et al. Ion dopants tuning the interband electronic structure for huge saturated ferroelectric polarization in bismuth ferrite films. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 88, 618–627 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-018-4862-0

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