Magnetic Structure and dielectric properties of antiferromagnetic FeCrO3

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic and dielectric properties of FeCrO3, showing an increased Ne9el temperature due to Fe substitution, with detailed structural and conduction mechanism analysis.

Contribution

It reports the synthesis and characterization of FeCrO3 with enhanced Ne9el temperature and elucidates the structural and conduction mechanisms involved.

Findings

Ne9el temperature of 560 K for FeCrO3

Corundum structure with antiferromagnetic order

Polaron hopping conduction at low temperatures

Abstract

We report the enhancement of N\'eel temperature of Cr2O3 by replacing 50% of Cr by Fe prepared by sol-gel method. The structural analysis by neutron diffraction has revealed that FeCrO3 belongs to a corundum structure (R-3c space group) with an antiferromagnetic spin structure having collinear spins along a-axis with propagation vector k=0; the high-temperature magnetisation study indicated a N\'eel temperature of 560 K. The enhancement in N\'eel temperature has been attributed to the strong orbital hybridization that leads to change in nearest neighbor bond angle and bond distances. Impedance spectroscopy has revealed conduction mechanism at low temperature is due to the polaron hopping while extrinsic contributions from the Maxwell-Wagner dominant at high temperatures