Physical Properties of Sol-Gel Lead Nickel Titanate Powder Pb(Ti1-xNix)O3

A series of sol-gel lead nickel titanate powder with composition of PbTi1-xNixO3, where x = 0.00, 0.03, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10 and 0.12, were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, and magnetization (M-H) curves. XRD patterns show that PbTi1-xNixO3 materials well crystallize in tetragonal phase. The tetragonal distorted ratio c/a of PbTi1-xNixO3 was found to decrease with the increase of Ni content and to increase with increasing calcining temperature. The mean size of PbTi1-xNixO3 crystal particles gradually decreased with increasing Ni content. Some Raman modes shifted to lower wavenumbers when Ni content increases, that is assigned to the variation of crystal structure due to the incorporation of Ni into PbTiO3 crystal. In addition, the results of room temperature magnetization measurements present an obvious improvement of ferromagnetism when Ni content increases in the range from 3 to 12 mol%.