Room temperature ferroic orders in Zr and (Zr, Ni) doped SrTiO$_3$

We synthesized strontium titanate SrTiO$_3$ (STO), Zr doped $\text{Sr}_\text{1-x}\text{Zr}_\text{x}\text{Ti}\text{O}_3$ and (Zr, Ni) co-doped $\text{Sr}_\text{1-x}\text{Zr}_\text{x}\text{Ti}_\text{1-y}\text{Ni}_\text{y}\text{O}_3$ samples using solid state reaction technique to report their structural, electrical and magnetic properties. The cubic $Pm$-$3m$ phase of the synthesized samples has been confirmed using Rietveld analysis of the powder X-ray diffraction pattern. The grain size of the synthesized materials was reduced significantly due to Zr doping as well as (Zr, Ni) co-doping in STO. The chemical species of the samples were identified using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. We observed forbidden first order Raman scattering at 148, 547 and 797 cm$^{-1}$ which may indicate nominal loss of inversion symmetry in cubic STO. The absence of absorption at 500 cm$^{-1}$ and within 600-700 cm$^{-1}$ band in Fourier Transform Infrared spectra corroborates Zr and Ni as substitutional dopants in our samples. Due to 4% Zr doping in $\text{Sr}_\text{0.96}\text{Zr}_\text{0.04}\text{Ti}\text{O}_3$ sample dielectric constant, remnant electric polarization, remnant magnetization and coercivity were increased. Notably, in the case of 4% Zr and 10% Ni co-doping we have observed clearly the existence of both FE and FM hysteresis loops in $\text{Sr}_{0.96}\text{Zr}_{0.04}\text{Ti}_{0.90}\text{Ni}_{0.10}\text{O}_3$ sample. In this co-doped sample, the remnant magnetization and coercivity were increased by $\sim$1 and $\sim$2 orders of magnitude respectively as compared to those of undoped STO. The coexistence of FE and FM orders in (Zr, Ni) co-doped STO might have the potential for interesting multiferroic applications.