LAUSR

Abstract The La0.5Pr0.5Cr1−xFexO3 (x = 0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5) ceramics are synthesized by a citric acid sol-gel method. The crystal structure, morphology, chemical composition and magnetic properties are studied. The X-ray diffraction patterns show that the ceramics crystalize in orthorhombic structure with space group Pnma. The Rietveld refinement results indicate that the lattice parameters get larger with the increase of Fe3+ doping. By means of magnetic measurements, negative magnetization in positive magnetic field is obtained with the decrease of temperature and positive exchange bias effect is observed after field cooling process in La0.5Pr0.5CrO3. When doping with Fe3+ at the Cr3+ sites, the negative magnetization disappears and the positive exchange bias effect transforms to negative. Meanwhile, the negative exchange bias field gradually decreases and vanishes when the doping value of x reaches 0.5. Based on the positive exchange bias effect, an abnormal magnetic switching phenomenon is obtained without changing the direction of the external field after field cooling process.