Exploring the Effect of La Substitution on Magnetic and Electrical Behavior of DyFeO3

Abstract

Structural, electrical, magnetic, and ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer studies on lanthanum (La)-doped DyFeO₃ (Dy_1-xLa_xFeO₃) are reported in this paper. X-ray diffraction measurements confirm the lattice expansion with La doping. Raman spectroscopic studies give insights into the doping of La into Dy in DyFeO₃. The temperature-dependent magnetization studies of samples show that there is a shift in the spin-reorientation transition temperature (T_SR) towards the lower temperatures with the increase of La-doping concentration for pure DyFeO₃ (DFO), Dy_0.8La_0.2FeO₃ (La2), and Dy_0.6La_0.4FeO₃ (La4) samples which could be due to the weakening of Fe³⁺-Dy³⁺ exchange interaction. Isothermal magnetization data and magnetically split sextet ⁵⁷Fe Mossbauer spectra of all the samples confirm the presence of antiferromagnetic ordering at room temperature. In addition, the observed magnetization data of LaFeO₃ (x = 1.0) sample indicates the presence of spin-glasslike behavior. It is also observed that with the increase of La doping, porosity increases resulting in the enhancement of leakage current density. Ohmic and space charge limited conduction (SCLC) mechanisms explain the conduction mechanism present in the samples.