Synthesis and characterization of novel multiferroic composites based on Y3Fe5O12@BaTiO3 and Y3Fe5O12@Pb(Zr,Ti)O3

Multiferroic composites have attracted a great deal of attention in the last decade, thanks to their superior performances compared to single-phase multiferroics. Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) was employed for the first time in this study in combination with BaTiO3 and PZT to produce dense ceramics which exhibit both ferromagnetism and spontaneous polarization at room temperature. Both materials have been synthetized by tailored sol-gel methods and sintered by conventional sintering and SPS. Different approaches, i.e. the effect of different precursors and processing conditions, have been compared and the results analysed by different techniques, such as XRD, electron microscopy (SEM, TEM), Raman spectroscopy; the magnetic and dielectric properties were also investigated. Raman spectroscopy shows evidence for retaining of ferroelectricity in BT even if the average crystal structure appears to be pseudo-cubic from refinement of XRD data. The shape of magnetic hysteresis loops also reveals the presence of magnetic parasitic phases even below the detection limit of XRD.