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Control of electrical leakage in magneto‐electric gallium ferrite via aliovalent substitution
Author(s) -
Singh Vijay,
Brajesh Kumar,
Sahu Sandeep,
Garg Ashish,
Gupta Rajeev
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/jace.16626
Subject(s) - materials science , gallium , doping , grain boundary , multiferroics , leakage (economics) , ferrite (magnet) , crystallite , grain size , electrical resistivity and conductivity , bismuth ferrite , metallurgy , composite material , microstructure , optoelectronics , ferroelectricity , electrical engineering , dielectric , macroeconomics , economics , engineering
One of the challenges with magnetoelectric multiferroic gallium ferrite (GaFeO 3 or GFO) is its high electrical leakage whose control is essential for realizing any prospect of its practical applications. In this manuscript, we report on the effect of aliovalent doping at Fe site in magnetoelectric gallium ferrite in controlling its electrical leakage via tuning of its grain and grain‐boundary characteristics. Polycrystalline pure as well as zinc (Zn 2+ ) and zirconium (Zr 4+ )‐doped gallium ferrite samples were synthesized by conventional solid‐state reaction method. Contrary to defect chemistry predictions, Zn 2+ substituted samples show marked reduction in the electrical leakage with 10% Zn 2+ substituted samples showing two orders of magnitude lower leakage current while Zr 4+ ‐doped samples exhibit increased electrical leakage. This is supported by higher activation energy for conduction in the low frequency regime for Zn 2+ ‐doped samples while nearly temperature independent conduction for Zr 4+ ‐doped GFO samples. The results suggest that while Zn 2+ doping leads to increase in resistance of the grain boundaries leading to lower conductivity, Zr 4+ doping leads to opposite effect.