Defect engineered enhancement of ferromagnetic properties in samarium doped Bi4Ti3O12 – BiFeO3 ceramics

The near future will bring lots of changes for computer memories, because mainstream silicon-based technology can no longer increase data throughput. A magnetoelectric memory would boost PC storage performance and at the same time increase energy efficiency as these memory cells do not need external power. In this work, we examined the recently reported possibility of developing a novel class of multiferroic materials on the basis of the rare-earth ions embedded in ferroelectric structures of the Aurivillius-family. For the first time powders of Bi6.3Sm0.7Fe3Ti3O21 were prepared by a sol gel method and then successfully sintered to dense polycrystalline materials.