Investigation of excess and deficiency of iron in BiFeO 3 Shilpi Chandel a , Preeti Thakur b, * , S.S. Thakur a , A. Sharma c, d , Jen-Hwa Hsu e , Monika Tomar f , Vinay Gupta f , Atul Thakur g a School of Physics & Materials Science, Shoolini University, Solan, 173212, India b Amity School of Applied Sciences, Amity University Gurgaon, Haryana, 122413, India c Nanotechnology Wing, Innovative Science Research Society, Shimla,171001, India d Department of Basic Sciences, Dr. YSP University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, HP-173212, India e Physics Department, National Taiwan University, Taipei,106, Taiwan f Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110007, India g Amity Centre of Nanotechnology, Amity University Gurgaon, Haryana,122413, India highlights graphical abstract  The average Crystallite size was found to be in the range 48e56 nm.  The optimized value of coercivity is ~102 Oe with the excess of iron.  Iron deficiency magnetism reduced to paramagnetic behavior.  BiFe 1.2 O 3 shows more typical P-E loop indicating low leakage current.  BiFe 1.2 O 3 is optimized for enhanced magnetic and electrical properties. article info Article history: Received 16 May 2017 Received in revised form 6 October 2017 Accepted 13 October 2017 Keywords: Ferroelectrics X-ray diffraction Raman Magnetization abstract Iron excess and deficient BFO with a composition BiFe x O 3 (x ¼ 0.8, 1.0, 1.2) were synthesized by a citrate precursor method. After appropriate thermal treatment, structural, optical, magnetic and electrical properties of the samples were investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of both BiFe 0.8 O 3 and BiFe 1.2 O 3 show rhombohedral structure, similar to that of BiFeO 3 with some impurity phases. The average crystallite size was found to be in the range 48e56 nm. Surface morphology of these isostructural ma- terials were also studied using FESEM. Raman spectral analysis observed shifting and decrement in the intensity of phonon modes with the excess and deficient of Fe in BFO that reveals the doping disorder at octahedral site. With the iron excess in BFO, there was an increase in magnetization but with the iron deficiency, magnetism was found to reduce showing paramagnetic behavior. The values of retentivity, coercivity and saturation magnetization in iron excess BFO was found to be 0.047 emu/g, 102 Oe, 0.567 emu/g respectively which is almost double the value of pure BFO. Saturated P-E loop at different fre- quencies were reported with higher remnant and coercive polarization for BiFe 1.2 O 3 nanoparticles as compared to pure BFO and BiFe 0.8 O 3 . © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: at.preeti@gmail.com (P. Thakur). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Chemistry and Physics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matchemphys https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2017.10.042 0254-0584/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Materials Chemistry and Physics 204 (2018) 207e215