Influence of process parameters on the optimisation of crystalline phase, size and strain of multiferroic Bismuth Iron Tri Oxide (BiFeO3) nanoceramics: A MCDM based TOPSIS approach

Abstract An attempt of synthesizing Bismuth Iron Tri Oxide (BiFeO3–BFO) nanopowder using the sol-gel route at various slotted calcination temperature and time was made to identify the minimum and as well as the optimum temperature required for obtaining single phase powders with minimum crystallite size and strain. The X-ray Diffraction study revealed that BFO demands a minimum temperature of 450 °C and a calcination time of 3 h for crystallizing in a multiferroic rhombohedral phase. The average crystallite size, space group of the unit cell and the crystalline strain were computed from Williamson-Hall (W–H) analysis for the entire range of temperature studied. In order to validate the experimental results, Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodology based Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and M-TOPSIS techniques have been adopted to choose the optimized set of experimental conditions for the simple synthesis of BFO nanoparticles relatively at a lower temperature with minimum strain. Fruitful results as deduced from the optimisation techniques presents the fact that the ideal process parameters arrived from MCDM approach agrees with the experimental observations. The obtained results have been discussed in detail.