Investigating the structural, morphological, dielectric and electric properties of the multiferroic (La0.8Ca0.2)0.9Bi0.1FeO3 material

The (La0.8Ca0.2)(0.9)Bi0.1FeO3 (LCBFO) compound has been synthesized by the sol-gel method and characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Raman spectroscopy and electrical impedance spectrometry. XRD results revealed that (La0.8Ca0.2)(0.9)Bi0.1FeO3 crystals are orthorhombic, belonging to the Pnma space group. The SEM measurements showed that the sample presents a large distribution of nano-grains connected to each other. The relaxation process and the electrical conductivity are awarded to the same type of charge carriers characterized by similar values of the activation energy determined from loss factor tangent tg (delta), the imaginary part of the permittivity and from the Modulus spectrum. The ac-conductivity was analysed to examine the conduction mechanism, using the Jonscher's universal power-law given by: sigma(ac) (omega) = sigma(dc) + A omega(s). Based on the parameter s behavior, the conductivity was studied according to the NSPT model (non-overlapping small polaron tunneling).