Dielectric Properties Of Sol - Gel Silica Glasses

Abstract

ABSTRACTDielectric properties have been measured for a series of porous and fully densified silica glasses, prepared by the sol-gel technique starting from Si-methoxide or Si-fume. The results for the partially densified glasses do not show any preferred orientation for porosity. When fully densified (∼2.25 gms/cc) without any prior treatment of the gels, they have dielectric constants of ≥ 6.5 and loss factors of 0.002 at 1 MHz, compared to values of 3.8 and <0.001 for commercial fused silica. There is no corresponding anomaly in the d.c. resistivity. Elemental carbon present to the extent of 400–500 ppm is likely to be the main cause for this enhanced dielectric constant. Extensive cleaning of the gels prior to densification to remove this carbon were not completely successful pointing to the difficulty in preparing high purity, low dielectric constant glasses via the organic sol-gel route at least in the bulk form.