Abstract
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•Proper development of well-crystalline phases of BiFeO3/MnFe2O4 composites.•Optimization and analysis of flexible ferroelectric and ferromagnetic behaviour.•Suitability of composites for high speed energy storage and data storage devices.
The key phenomena in multiferroic materials are their spontaneous polarization and magnetization. In order to meet the modern needs in the field of information technology and engineering, their coupling has been of great interest for generating marvel applications. Based on this idea, sol–gel auto-combustion method was utilized to synthesize BiFeO3 and MnFe2O4 which were moulded together in a composite by ball milling. For all the calcined samples of (1 − x)Bi0.9La0.1Fe0.9Mn0.1O3-(x)MnFe2O4 with different concentrations of MnFe2O4 i.e. at x = 0.00, 0.30, 0.50, 0.70 and 1.00, XRD was utilized for the analysis of crystal structure. It depicted the rhombohedral structure of BiFeO3 without any phase shifting throughout the samples, except at x = 1.00, for pure MnFe2O4, exhibiting cubic structure with no peak of BiFeO3 involved. Surface morphology was analysed using FESEM which confirmed that the granular size increased with the increase in MnFe2O4 concentration. For finding the weight percentage and elemental composition of the prepared composites, EDX analysis was carried out which revealed the presence of Bi, Mn, Fe, O, La in accordance with their stoichiometric formula. Vibrating sample magnetometry was put into use to inspect the magnetic properties of the synthesized composites and it was found that with the enhancement of MnFe2O4, magnetic characteristics were significantly improved. At last, precision multiferroic tester was used to examine the ferroelectric properties at 10 V. The PE loops, recoverable energy density, energy loss density and energy efficiency revealed a nice ferroelectric response in BiFeO3 dominating compositions. These interesting features uncovered the potential of these compositions for energy storage devices.