Intrinsic Magnetic and Ferroelectric Behaviour of Non-magnetic Al3+ Ion Substituted Dysprosium Iron Garnet Compounds

Synthetic garnets are a group of oxide materials that play a vital role in the development of solid state lasers, magnetic and optic-electronic devices. The analysis on the solubility of rare-earth elements in the well-crystallized system has led to the discovery of peculiar oxide materials with multifunctional properties. By following the above importance, Aluminium ion (Al3+) substituted Dysprosium Iron Garnet compounds with the chemical formula of Dy3Fe5−xAlxO12 (x = 0–0.5) have been synthesized by the solid state reaction method and the effect of substitution of non-magnetic ions into the magnetic sub-lattices have been analyzed. The Rietveld refinement of powder x-ray diffraction patterns confirms that the pure Dy3Fe5O12 compound crystallizes with cubic (Space group: Ia3d) superstructure whereas all the Al3+ substituted samples exhibit the coexistence of cubic (Ia3d) and trigonal Fe2O3 (R3c) phases. The energy gap values of the prepared compounds is found to be around 1.6 eV which reveals the semiconducting nature and the decreasing trend of band gap values may be due to the growth factor of crystallites, structural disorder and distortion introduced into the crystal lattice. From the Micro-Raman analysis, it is found that the substituted Al3+ ions starts filling into both tetrahedral and octahedral positions and the assignments of vibrational modes observed from Raman spectra confirm the incorporation of Al3+ ions into the Dy3Fe5O12 garnet structure. From the magnetization analysis, it is found that the response of super-exchange interaction between Fe3+ ions in the a and d sites of Dy3Fe5O12 compound leads to net magnetic moment and the substitution of Al3+ ions preferably replaces Fe3+ ions in d sites and suggests the decrease in net magnetization values. From the photoluminescence studies, it is noticed that the luminescence behavior of Al3+ ions substituted Dy3Fe5−xAlxO12 compounds are due to the superposition of a broad emission band and reveals the variation in concentration of Al3+ ions in the prepared compounds. An interesting point to note is that, a well saturated “soft” ferroelectric hysteresis loop is obtained in both pure and Al3+ substituted Dy3Fe5−xAlxO12 compounds, and the observed electric hysteresis loops are found to be influenced by the factors such as capacitance nature, resistivity effects and leakage current of the compounds. Hence, the study on effect of trivalent non-magnetic ion substitution in a hard magnetic Dy3Fe5O12 system leads to interesting intrinsic magnetic and ferroelectric properties and found suitability for the fabrication of energy storage and optoelectronic devices.