Temperature-Dependent Phase Formation, Surface Morphological and Magnetic Studies of Bismuth Iron Oxide Grown by Co-precipitation Method.

In the present study, the co-precipitation method has been used to grow BiFeO powders, which are pressed into pellets and sintered at 450, 500 and 550 °C for 2 h in a muffle furnace. The crystalline nature is studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD), which depicts multiphase formation. The un-annealed sample shows highest peak belonging to BiFeO, while smaller peaks of BiFeO and Bi(BiFe)O are also evident. With increase in sintering temperature 450 − 550 °C, the major peak belonging to BiFeO decreases and peaks intensities of other phases increase indicating that some phases grow at the expense of others. The surface morphology, as determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), reveals grains of varying sizes and shapes. The vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) is used elucidate the magnetic characteristics, which have been observed to strongly depend upon the sintering temperature. The phase formation behaviours of this material system may be useful to optimize the fabrication conditions for the realization of single-phase BiFeO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]