Electrochemically manipulating BiFeO₃ particles via Bi³⁺ ion extraction

Because multifunctional ceramics are widely used in the electronics, manipulating composition and structure of the electronic ceramics aim at improving the performance of the target material for appropriate applications. However, the composite materials with multiphases and multicomponents could be achieved by mixing the nanomaterials with various preparing methods or technologies, which generally require a bunch of experimental design to obtain the target products. For achieving the goals, a novel electrochemical approach for preparing functional ceramic materials is demonstrated via ion extraction from the A site of perovskite BiFeO₃ (BFO) ceramic particles, and whereby a single-phase perovskite BFO could be evolved into multiphase and multicrystalline homogeneous composites. With gradual changes in material particle size, composition, structure, and morphology upon electrochemical Bi³⁺ ion extraction, the magnetic and electromagnetic properties of the decomposed BFO along with the generated multiphase and multicrystalline composites would present pronounced evolutionary behaviors, compared with original BFO. Apparently, such titration method upon electrochemical ion extraction could be employed to manipulate the properties of the functional ceramics. The simple strategy of electrochemical manipulation BFO would be applied to certain materials with electrochemical activity to achieve the target performance.