Effect of magnetic annealing on magnetization of BiFeO3 ceramics

The effect of magnetic annealing treatment on the magnetization of multiferroic BiFeO3 was studied systematically. A series of pelletized nano-sized BiFeO3 powders were annealed at high temperature under different magnetic fields. Typical ferromagnetic hysteresis loops were obtained at room temperature of the ceramics which were derived from ferromagnetic BiFeO3 precursors. On the other hand, antiferromagnetic behaviors were observed in other samples synthesized from nonmagnetic precursors. The enhanced magnetic properties were ascribed to the magnetic anisotropy which was induced by the strong magnetic fields. This work indicates that the strong magnetic annealing method is an alternative approach to tuning the magnetic properties of high performance multiferroic materials with canted antiferromagnetic ordering. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.