Recently, there has been increasing interest in so-called multiferroic materials, where two or more ferroic orderings (ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and ferroelasticity) coexist simultaneously. In a multiferroic material with ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism, magnetization can be controlled by applied electric field and polarization can be controlled by external magnetic field (magnetoelectric effect). Such materials lead us to future innovative electronic devices. BiFeO₃ (BFO) is a promising candidate for such applications because it shows ferroelectric and weak ferromagnetic orderings above room temperature (Curie temperature T_C~1100K and Néel temperature T_N~640K).

 Recently, the influences of surface texture and Bi/Fe ratios on electric properties of BFO thin films have been investigated.[1] According to [1], two regions with μm-order size were observed on the film surface by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The sample containing lots of one region shows good electric properties. Therefore, in order to improve electric properties of BFO thin films, it is important to investigate their properties in these regions.

 Here, we prepared BFO thin films grown by chemical solution deposition using precursor solutions with different Bi/Fe ratios and were characterized by micro-Raman scattering. Micro-Raman scattering is a very useful tool to study their crystallinity with μm-order spatial resolution. Our Raman results demonstrated that the surface of samples consisted of two regions ; one region crystallized in perovskite units and the other not. These are consistent with AFM observation.[1] We found that the electric properties on BFO thin films are dependent on their crystallinity.

[1] Y.Nakamura, S.Nakashima and M.Okuyama, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. (submitted)

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/15716 must be provided.

1. Synthesis and characterization of Mn-doped BiFeO₃ nanoparticles