Origin of enhanced magnetization in rare earth doped multiferroic bismuth ferrite

We report structural and magnetic properties of rare earth doped Bi0.95R0.05 FeO3 (R=Y, Ho, and Er) submicron particles. Rare earth doping enhances the magnetization and the magnetization shows an increasing trend with decreasing dopant ionic radii. In contrast to the x-ray diffraction pattern, we have seen a strong evidence for the presence of rare earth iron garnets R3Fe5O12 in magnetization measured as a function of temperature, in selected area electron diffraction, and in Raman measurements. Our results emphasised the role of secondary phases in the magnetic property of rare earth doped BiFeO3 compounds along with the structural distortion favoring spin canting by increase in Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya exchange energy. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.