Relaxor ferroelectricity, ferromagnetic and optical second harmonic properties in lanthanum lithium niobate (La 0.05 Li 0.85 NbO 3 ) nanoparticles Carlos A. Díaz-Moreno a,⇑ , Yu Ding a , Chunqiang Li a , Jorge Portelles b,c , J. Heiras c , A. Hurtado-Macias d,g , J.R. Farias e , J. González-Hernández f , M.J. Yacamán g , Jorge López a a Department of Physics of University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Ave, El Paso, TX 79968, USA b Facultad de Física, Universidad de La Habana, San lázaro y L, 10400, Cuba c Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Nanociencias y Nanotecnología, km 107 Carretera Tijuana-Ensenada, Ensenada, B.C. 22860, Mexico d Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados S.C., Miguel de Cervantes #120, Complejo Industrial Chihuahua, Chihuahua, C.P. 31109, Mexico e Instituto de Ingeniería y Tecnología, UACJ, Avenida del Charro #450 N. Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, C.P. 32310, Mexico f Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial, Santiago de Querétaro 76130, Qro, Mexico g Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA article info Article history: Received 29 September 2016 Received in revised form 5 February 2017 Accepted 11 March 2017 Available online 14 March 2017 Keywords: Relaxor ferroelectric X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Lanthanum lithium niobate Ferromagnetic Second Harmonic Generation Multiferroic nanoparticles abstract Relaxor ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and Second Harmonic Generation properties were founded and studied as a function of a reduction heat treatment at 650 °C in a Ar-5%H 2 atmosphere in stoichiometric La 0.05 Li 0.85 NbO 3 nanoparticles of 40 nm. A diffuse dielectric anomaly related with relaxor behavior from 25 °C to 800 °C in a frequency range from 100 Hz to 1 MHz was founded. It also shows ferromagnetic anhysterestic type and ferroelectric hysteresis loops at room temperature with a magnetic spin remnant of 2.5  10 3 emu/g and polarization saturation of 0.235 lC/cm 2 , remnant polarization of 0.141 lC/cm 2 , coercive field of 1.35 kV/cm, respectively. It shows very good second harmonic generation signal at 450 nm and 500 nm. High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, indicate an ABO 3 perovskite structure, new electronic binding energy structure for La (5s, 4d), Li (1s), Nb (4s, 3d, 4p) and oxygen (1s, 2s) and new vibrations modes on octahedron NbO 6 related to multiferroic single phase nanoparticles, respectively. Ó 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The coupling between relaxor-ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and optical second harmonic properties in one single phase ABO 3 type nanoparticles have been attracting much attention for the fabrication of new nanotechnologies in medical imaging, high power acoustic projectors, ultrasonic motors, sonars and micro electro mechanical systems [1]. The distribution of the spin polar- izations (M s ) related with exotic magnetic behaviors can be under- stood by structural defects related with interstitial, substitution or vacancy atoms at the surface of nanoparticles, the dielectric con- stant (e) and the electric polarization (P s ) rendered their properties at the core of nanoparticles [2,3]. This type of couplings between properties can lead degrees of freedoms useful to be use in store data for electronic memory devices miniaturization. This has led an important path of designing multiferroic properties in one single phase ABO 3 nanoparticles. Besides, the most common routes to synthesize these new multiferroic nanoparticles with an excel- lent result on their ferroelectric, ferromagnetic and optical proper- ties are by wet chemistry and mechanochemical alloying methods [4]. Acharya et al., reported multiferroic properties at room tem- perature in lanthanum iron oxide (LaFeO 3 ) synthesized by solid state reaction method. The ferroelectric and ferromagnetic values reported are saturation polarization (P s ) of 0.3229 lC/cm 2 , rem- nant polarization (P r ) of 0.1504 lC/cm 2 , coercive field ferroelectric (E c ) of 1.315 kV/cm and a magnetic moment (M s ) of 0.44 emu/g, respectively [5]. As well, Srivastava et al., reported on Bi (1-x-y) La x Pr y FeO 3 nanoparticles magnetic and dielectric properties at room temperature, a magnetic moment (M s ) of 2.6 emu/g when is apply a magnetic field of 500 Oe and dielectric properties were measured as a function of the frequency within a range from 100 Hz to 1 MHz, respectively. Also, it was found that dielectric constant value hence from 81 (when, x = 0 and y = 0) to 354 (when, x = 0.2 and y = 0.15) at 100 Hz [6]. Moreover, Du et al., reported on Dy (1-x) La x FeO 3 synthesized by solid reaction a crystal lattice distor- tion by using Raman spectroscopy. This was explained due to the http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2017.03.022 0304-8853/Ó 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cdiazmoreno@utep.edu, carlos.alejandro.diaz.moreno@gmail. com (C.A. Díaz-Moreno). Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 433 (2017) 262–270 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmmm