  A comparative study of the effect of Fe and Ni doping on the bismuth based
perovskite La0.6Bi0.4MnO3.1, a projected spintronics magnetic semiconductor has
been carried out. The doped systems show an expressive change in magnetic
ordering temperature. However, the shifts in ferromagnetic transition (TC) of
these doped phases are in opposite direction with respect to the parent phase
TC of 115 K. The Ni-doped phase shows an increase in TC ~200 K, whereas the
Fe-doped phase exhibits a downward shift to TC~95 K. Moreover, the Fe-doped is
hard-type whereas the Ni-doped compound is soft-type ferromagnet. It is
observed that the materials are semiconducting in the ferromagnetic phase with
activation energies of 77 & 82 meV for Fe & Ni-doped phases respectively. In
the presence of external magnetic field of 7 Tesla, they exhibit minor changes
in the resistivity behaviours and the maximum isothermal magnetoresistance is
around -20 % at 125 K for the Ni-phase. The results are explained on the basis
of electronic phase separation and competing ferromagnetic and
antiferromagnetic interactions between the various mixed valence cations.
