Investigation of structural, dielectric, and magnetic study on Gd-doped BZT–BCT ceramics

In this work, the (1-x)(BZT–BCT)-xGd₂O₃ (x = 0.00, 0.01, 0.03, and 0.05) ceramics are fabricated via the solid-state technique. Investigations were done on its structure, microstructure, dielectric, ferroelectric, and magnetic characteristics. The presence of tetragonal phases was confirmed in Gd-doped samples. The crystallite size obtained is 42–35 nm after Gd doping. The grain size increased considerably as the doping amount increased, as confirmed from SEM images. The system exhibits very modest dielectric characteristics (ε_r = 560, tan δ = 0.5) at doping for x = 0.03. Its dielectric value decreases with doping measured at low frequency and remains steady in the high-frequency region. Furthermore, the system exhibited very soft ferroelectricity (P_r = 2.2 µC/cm³, E_c = 0.51 kV/cm) for x = 0.03 and decreased with increasing doping. The Gd-doped sample shows ferromagnetism and the saturation magnetization (Ms) value of 5.3 emu/g and 8.8 emu/g for x = 0.03 and x = 0.05, respectively, measured at 10 K with a 3 T external magnetic field.