Luminescent-electrical-magnetic performances of sol-gel-derived Ni-modified BiNaTiO.

2.5 mol% Ni-modified BiNaTiO (BNT-Ni-0.025) ceramic has been fabricated based on the sol-gel method. The BNT-Ni-0.025 ceramic possesses a rhombohedral perovskite structure with denser microstructure than that of pure BNT ceramic. The introduction of certain amount of Ni (e.g. 2.5 mol%) in BNT can reduce the sintering temperature (50 °C lower), effectively suppress the grain growth, greatly decrease the dielectric loss and then produce multifunctionality. The BNT-Ni-0.025 ceramic also exhibits good ferroelectric properties with a large remanent polarization of ~26 μC/cm. The observed weak ferromagnetism of the ceramic can be ascribed to the exchange interaction between free carriers (oxygen vacancy induced delocalized electrons) and the localized Ni ions. Under the excitation of 370 nm, the BNT-Ni-0.025 ceramic shows broadband NIR luminescence centered at ~1480 nm from Ni with long emission lifetime (28 µs), which can cover the optical communication window and be applied in broadband optical amplifiers. The multifunctional BNT-Ni-0.025 ceramic shows potentials in the application of optical-electrical-magnetic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]