Effect of non-magnetic doping on leakage and magnetic properties of BiFeO3 thin films

In this paper, we show that the leakage current properties of BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films have been greatly improved by Zr-doping. In contrast, the magnetic properties of Zr-doped BFO films are affected as a weak ferromagnetism. Beyond the double-exchange interactions arising from the creation of Fe2+, we propose another simple model considering the replacement of the magnetically active Fe3+, time to time, by a non-active Zr4+, which is expected to induce a local ferromagnetic coupling rather than an antiferromagnetic one.