Selenium-enriched flower-like of bismuth ferrite nanosheets assembly with associated magnetic properties

Facile sol-gel synthesis method was used to prepare Selenium (Se) and Lanthanum (La) co-doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles for soft and hard ferromagnetic applications. La and Se doped bismuth ferrite nanostructures were fabricated using facile double-solvent sol-gel technique for, BiFe1-xSexO3 (BFSex) and Bi0.92La.08Fe1-xSexO3 (L8Sex), (where, x=0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) nanocomposites. The structural, morphological and magnetic properties of BFSex and L8Sex were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. Structural and morphological analysis reveals that BFSex and L8Sex transform from perovskite rhombohedral crystal structure of pure BiFeO3 to orthorhombic crystal structure by the co-substitution of Se and La. The SEM results revealed that the shape of the nanocomposites is continuously changed with increasing Se concentration starting first from nanoparticles shape to needle-like to the nanosheets and ending up to the self-growth flower-like structure under the same synthesis conditions. The magnetization of BFSex and L8Sex is large at initial Se concentration but the coercivity and squareness of the magnetic hysteresis increase with increases in Se concentration. The results revealed that various co-doped BFO novel nanostructures can be synthesized using simple and economical method for variable magnetic properties.