Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2019) 134: 404
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2019-12775-x

Regular Article

Effect of ferrite phase addition on the functional properties of (K_0.5Na_0.5)NbO₃ceramics

¹ Unidade Acadêmica de Física, Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil
² Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia-GO, Brazil
³ Department of Physics, Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management (GITAM) University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
⁴ Departamento de Física e Química, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Ilha, Solteira, SP, Brazil
⁵ Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal de Goias, Goiania, Brazil

^* e-mail: prasun@ufg.br

Received: 9 February 2019
Accepted: 21 May 2019
Published online: 28 August 2019

Abstract

Lead-free ceramics consist of ferroelectric K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃ (KNN) and spinel ferrimagnetic CoFe₂O₄ (CFO) phases were prepared by the conventional solid state reaction method. The constituent phase presence of multiferroic material was confirmed by X-ray diffraction techniques with Rietveld refinement methods. A systematic study of dielectric properties at room temperature with frequency revealed that the dispersion is in accordance with the Cole-Cole model with the presence of dc conductivity at lower frequencies. The main reason for this type of dispersion was related with the different heterogeneous conduction mechanism between the ferroelectric and ferrite phases in multiferroic structures. Complex impedance analysis re-established non-Debye type dielectric relaxation mechanism in the multiferroic. The effect of constituents phase variation on the electric and magnetic hysteresis behavior was also examined. The ferroelectric order diluted with the addition of ferrite content. The remnant magnetization (M _r) and saturation magnetization (M _s) values increased while the coercivity (H _c) values of the materialss decreased with the addition of ferrite content. We established that this material is a room temperature multiferroic and highlighted a possible way to modulate functional properties of this lead-free materials for application in microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology.