Greatly reduced leakage current and conduction mechanism in aliovalent-ion-doped BiFeO3

Transport properties of aliovalent-ion-doped BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films have been studied in order to identify the cause of high leakage currents. Doping of 2at.% Ti4+ ions increased the dc resistivity by more than three orders of magnitude. In contrast, doping of 2+ ions such as Ni2+ reduced the dc resistivity by two orders of magnitude. Current–voltage (I–V) characteristics indicated that the main conduction mechanism for pure and Ni2+ doped BFO was space charge limited, which was associated with the free-carriers trapped by the oxygen vacancies, whereas in the Ti4+ doped BFO, field-assisted ionic conduction was dominant.