Continuously controllable optical band gap in orthorhombic ferroelectric KNbO3-BiFeO3 ceramics

The optical bandgap of orthorhombic ferroelectric KNbO3 is shown to be continuously controllable via Bi and Fe co-substitution according to a K1-xBixNb1-xFexO3 doping mechanism. The room temperature X-ray diffraction data combined with Raman spectroscopy analysis show the polar orthorhombic crystal structure to persist up to x = 0.25, while the bandgap narrows monotonically by 1 eV (∼33%). In-situ Raman spectroscopy corroborates the polar nature of all compositions in the temperature range of –100 to 200 °C. The ability to control the bandgap while maintaining the spontaneous polarisation makes the K1-xBixNb1-xFexO3 system interesting for photoinduced processes in a wide temperature range.