Correlation between structural, ferroelectric and luminescence properties through compositional dependence of Nd3+ ion in lead free Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3

Abstract We present a comprehensive investigation on the dependence of Nd 3+ substitution on various properties in [ N a 0.5 B i 0.5 − x N d x ] T i O 3 (NBNT) for x = 0 − 0.1 . The structural analysis of XRD measurements revealed a crossover structural phase transition from monoclinic ( C c ) to orthorhombic ( P b n m ) for composition s 0.04 ≤ x ≤ 0.1 . Increase in Nd 3+ substitution resulted in larger grain size. Enhanced electrical properties were observed for x = 0.01. Dielectric measurements revealed the relaxor behaviour enhances with the content of Nd 3+ , which is verified with help of bipolar strain loops. The polarization measurements support the evolution of centrosymmetry space group over particular cross over for NBNT with x = 0.04 . In concomitance with enhanced electrical properties, the luminescence measurements showed the largest emission for x = 0.01 for the Nd 3+ substituted NBT. The onset of luminescence quenching starts from the substitution of x = 0.03 which can be surmised to be due to the effect of centro-symmetric ( P b n m ) of orthorhombic structure in addition to the expected concentration quenching effects. The results presented here, establishes the substitution of Nd 3+ into the NBT resulted in enhanced electrical and optical properties compared to parent NBT, making these NBNTs promising candidate for multifunctionality applications.