Investigation of dielectric and complex impedance spectroscopic studies of Bi_1−xBa_xFeO₃ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.30) system

Polycrystalline Bi_1−xBa_xFeO₃ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.30) samples have been prepared by two stage solid state reaction method. The surface texture of the prepared material exhibited a uniform grain distribution with minor empty space suggesting that the density of the pelletized samples is high and grain size is found to decrease with Ba substitution. An important observation is the stabilization of a dielectric anomaly near the magnetic transition temperature in temperature dependent dielectric studies which is ascribed to the presence of magnetoelectric (ME) coupling. This ME coupling effect has been demonstrated by measuring the effect of varying magnetic fields on the dielectric constant. The dielectric constant increased with increasing applied magnetic field giving a coupling coefficient (ε_r(H) − ε_r(0))/ε_r(0) of 1% at H = 5 kOe at room temperature which demonstrate the importance of these material from application point of view. The dielectric constant is high at low frequencies and is found to decrease at moderate frequencies indicating the Maxwell–Wagner contribution to the dielectric response. The increase in Ba content and temperature resulted in an increase in bulk resistance and exhibits a typical negative temperature coefficient of resistance behavior. A temperature dependent and non-Debye type of relaxation process is revealed by impedance spectroscopic studies. The conductivity spectra revealed the presence of hopping mechanism in the electrical transport process and the activation energies lying in the range from 0.45 to 0.70 eV indicate that the conduction of oxygen vacancies through hopping mechanism.