Dual-phase formation in LaFeO 3 upon doping of rare-earth Dy 3+ : Struct–Opto–Dielectric–Magnetic characteristics

The potential technological uses of perovskite-based LaFeO 3 nanostructured materials have gotten a lot of interest in recent years. In this present investigation, we have attempted to investigate the substitution of unpaired 4f electrons of the Dy 3+ ions into LaFeO 3 material would play a crucial role in the various functional properties, thereby enhancing their suitability for various applications. The motivation of this work is to synthesize, rare-earth Dy 3+ -doped lanthanum ferrite with the composition of La 1− x Dy x FeO 3 ( x = 0 to 0.25) using the conventional solid-state reaction method. The effect of Dy 3+ substitution in lanthanum ferrite on the physical properties was evaluated using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman analysis, scanning electron microscopy, Elemental/mapping analysis, UV–Vis spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, dielectric and magnetic measurement techniques. The novelty of this work: the synthesized ferrite materials shows both orthorhombic structured Pbnm phase of LaFeO 3 and cubic ( I 21 3 ) Dy 2 O 3 phase were observed from Rietveld refinement of XRD analysis. While increasing the Dy substitution, the Dy 2 O 3 phase starts to increase from 1.44 to 15.05%, respectively. The optical behavior was greatly affected and reduced the optical band gap, E g values from 3.68 to 3.17 with the effect of Dy. The dielectric properties of synthesized ferrite materials realized a dielectric constant dispersion that displayed a maximum at low frequency. The synthesized La 1− x Dy x FeO 3 ferrite materials displayed canted antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic behavior. The values of saturation magnetization ( M s ) were enhanced from 0.108 ( x = 0) to 1.383 ( x = 0.25) emu/g. It is suggested that synthesized La 1− x Dy x FeO 3 ferrite materials with different optical, dielectric, and magnetic properties could be tailored for different requirements.