Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ceramics International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ceramint Study of Mn doped multiferroic DyFeO 3 ceramics S. Shravan Kumar Reddy a , N. Raju a , Ch. Gopal Reddy a, ⁎ , P. Yadagiri Reddy a , K. Rama Reddy a , S.M. Gupta b , V. Raghavendra Reddy c a Department of Physics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, Telangana, India b LMS, Raja Ramanna Center for Advance Technology, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India c UGC DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, University Campus, Khandwa Road, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Rare-earth ortho ferrites Leakage current ABSTRACT Structural, Raman, room temperature and temperature dependent leakage current density, dielectric, magnetization and room temperature Mossbauer studies of Mn doped DyFeO 3 (i.e., DyFe 1-x Mn x O 3 ; x=0 to 0.5) polycrystalline materials prepared through sol-gel route are reported in this paper. From Rietveld refinement of x-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns it is found that all the samples are formed in single phase without any detectable impurity. The Raman modes with doping are consistent with literature of such doped orthoferrites. From the room temperature (RT) leakage current density (J-E) measurements, it is observed that leakage current density increases with Mn doping concentration, which is explained in terms of microstructure. The leakage current density is found to decrease with the decrease of temperature in each sample as observed from low temperature leakage current density (J-E) measurements. Further, activation energy is calculated from the temperature dependent J-E data. The dielectric loss data is observed to exhibit frequency dependence and the activation energy obtained indicate the contribution from space charges. From temperature dependent magnetization data, it is found that with the increase of Mn content, the spin reorientation (SR) transition temperature (T SR ) moves towards higher temperature. From M-H curves at 10 K and 300 K with different Mn doping concentrations, it is found that saturation Magnetization (M S ) decreases with increase of Mn doping. Room temperature Mossbauer data shows the presence of Fe 3+ state and the gradual decrease of internal hyperfine filed with increase of Mn content. 1. Introduction In the recent years, multiferroic/magneto-electric (ME) materials research has increased interest in the scientific community and becoming emerging field, as they are promising candidates for techni- cal applications in various fields and rich physics involved [1–3]. Magneto-electric (ME) materials exhibit simultaneous ferroelectric and magnetic ordering, although it is difficult to observe these two orderings simultaneously, as the magnetism requires presence of electrons in the d-shells of the transition metal ions which prevent the occurrence of ferroelectric ordering. However many materials, specifically oxide materials such as rare earth manganites (RMnO 3 ), rare earth chromites (RCrO 3 ), rare earth orthoferrites (RFeO 3 ), RMn 2 O 5 and RFe 2 O 4 are reported as multiferroic/ME materials with different origins of ferroelectricity [4–6]. Among all of them, rare-earth orthoferrites of general formula RFeO 3 (R=Rare earth) are a special class of materials exhibiting large ME coupling. DyFeO 3 is a rare-earth ortho-ferrite of RFeO 3 (R=Dy, Rare-earth) group. This material is recently reported to exhibit large ME coupling at about 4 K and magnetic field induced ferroelectricity in single crystal DyFeO 3 [7], which was explained in terms of exchange-striction between adjacent Fe 3+ and Dy 3+ layers with the respective layered antiferromagnetic (AFM) components. DyFeO 3 crystallizes in orthorhombic distorted (ABO 3 ) perovskite structure with centro-symmetric space group Pbnm. DyFeO 3 exhibits Fe 3+ -Fe 3+ , Dy 3+ -Fe 3+ and Dy 3+ -Dy 3+ exchange inter- actions. Due to these interactions, DyFeO 3 exhibits spin reorientation of Fe 3+ spins from canted AFM to collinear AFM state. It is reported that substitution of Mn 3+ ions at Fe-site increases spin reorientation transition temperature (T SR ) and decreases Neel temperature (T N ) [8,9]. Substitution of about 40% Mn at Fe site results these two temperatures to be close to room temperature [9] and therefore has been argued to be the suitable material from the room temperature application point of view. However, most of the previous studies on DyFe 1-x Mn x O 3 system were discussed only based on magnetization measurements [8,9]. 57 Fe Mossbauer measurements give the micro- scopic information about the magnetic ordering present, valence of Fe http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.02.010 Received 29 November 2016; Received in revised form 1 February 2017; Accepted 2 February 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: ch_gopalreddy@yahoo.com (C.G. Reddy). Ceramics International (xxxx) xxxx–xxxx 0272-8842/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Please cite this article as: Reddy, S.S.K., Ceramics International (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.02.010