Influence of inherent strain on the curie temperature of rare earth ion-doped bismuth vanadate

X-ray line broadening is found to be an effective parameter to estimate the strain associated with rare earth ion (Gd3+)-doped polycrystalline bismuth vanadate(Bi2VO5.5). The strain increases with increasing Gd3+ concentratio n. It is anisotropic and found to be maximum in (111) plane. The Curie temp erature which is known to decrease with increase in the rare earth ion conc entration in these compounds is correlated with increase in strain.