Sintering and fatigue properties of Pb and La co-doped BiFeO3 multiferroics

The sintering, fatigue and electrical properties for BFO and Bi0.85 − x La0.15Pb x FeO3 (BLPF, x = 0–0.10) multiferroic ceramics were investigated. The microstructure of BLPF x measured by SEM showed that, the grain size gradually decreased from 2.8 μm to 900 nm with the increase of Pb. The dielectric response of these samples revealed that Pb-doping drastically improved the dielectric properties. For x = 0.05 ceramics, the polarization fatigue proceeded much more slowly; after 108 switching cycles, the polarization was 97.3% of its virgin value. The influence of porosity and oxygen vacancies on the polarization fatigue was investigated.