Role of Sn doping on the structural, morphological, optical and magnetic properties of BaTiO 3 nanostructures

It was previously understood that pure BaTiO 3 has a diamagnetic property, whereas ferromagnetic signature has been unfolded in BaTiO 3 by doping a non-magnetic dopant. In this research work, non-magnetic Sn (Tin) is doped with BaTiO 3 in various concentrations i.e. 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% Sn via facile sol–gel approach so as to tune the magnetic parameters for spintronic applications. The formulated structural analyses demonstrate that all the synthesized samples possess a single phase of the tetragonal (0.1%), whereas a minor secondary phase of SnTiO 3 is present in 0.2% and 0.3% Sn-doped samples. Making use of the UV–Visible spectra, the calculated optical band gap ( E g ) of 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% of Sn-doped samples is 3.11, 3.14 and 3.16 eV, respectively. Further, the ferromagnetic ordering associated to the non-magnetic Sn-doped BaTiO 3 could be clarified on the basis of intrinsic defects in the BaTiO 3 lattice which is authenticated by performing the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) measurements. The vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) study reveals that the saturation magnetization ( M S ) Value is 0.17 ± 0.001 × 10 –3 emu/g for 0.1% Sn and 1.43 ± 0.01 × 10 –3 emu/g for 0.2% Sn whereby the ferromagnetic nature is asserted for the sample. On the other hand, the 0.3% Sn-doped sample exhibits the diamagnetic feature which is because of the lack of oxygen vacancies. The derived results could affirm that the augmented ferromagnetic nature is influenced by the created defects thereby the room-temperature ferromagnetic ordering is stabilized in 0.1% and 0.2% Sn-doped nanoparticles. Therefore, the 0.1% Sn-doped BaTiO 3 sample with low saturation magnetization can be a candid candidate in the emerging sphere of spintronics applications.