Simultaneously improved ferroelectric and magnetic properties of Bi7Fe2NiTi3O21 thin films by in-situ magnetic field annealing

Abstract In this work, solution derived Aurivillius Bi7Fe2NiTi3O21 (BFNTO) thin films were prepared by in-situ magnetic annealing. The evolution of structure, ferroelectric and magnetic properties were systematically studied. As the increase of annealing magnetic field to 4 Tesla, the ferroelectric properties were improved with a larger intrinsic remnant polarization of 12.4 μC/cm2. The magnetic properties were substantially improved with remnant magnetization from 1.4 to 3.2 emu/cm3 as the annealing magnetic field increases from 0 to 6 Tesla. These results indicate that in-situ magnetic annealing is an effective method to optimize ferroelectric and magnetic properties of multiferroics.