Electrospinning of multiferroic CoFe2O4@ Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 nano-structured fibers via two different routes

Abstract

Abstract Multiferroic composite materials have attracted a lot of attention for their excellent ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties. For the first time one-dimensional core-shell structure of CoFe2O4/Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (CFO@BZCT) multiferroic composite was synthesized by electrospinning. The effect of electrospinning routes on the composite fibers properties was investigated. To do so, two different routes were utilized: the electrospinning of core and shell solutions using coaxial nozzle and the electrospinning of BZCT solution containing CFO fibers (with three different concentrations of 2, 4 and 8\xa0g/100\xa0ml solution). The fiber morphology was maintained for all samples in calcination temperatures up to 900\xa0°C. Spinel cobalt ferrite and perovskite BZT-0.5BCT phases were crystallized for calcined composites. The nano and core-shell structure of composites were confirmed by the TEM analysis. Magnetoelectric coupling of CFO and BZCT phases was investigated by the temperature-dependent SQUID measurement, where a ferroelectric phase transformation at 100\xa0°C induced magnetization changes. Low saturation magnetization and dielectric constant of 6.7\xa0emu/g and 300\xa0±\xa010 were obtained for the sample synthesized by the first method while these values rose to 36.8\xa0emu/g and 400\xa0±\xa030 respectively for the second method. A comparison of the two methods exhibited a larger fiber diameter, porous fibers and lower ferroic properties for the sample synthesized by the first method.