Effect of cerium substitution on structural and optical properties of barium titanate ceramics

Abstract

Barium titanate shows interesting behavior with little modification in synthesis route and variation in doping concentration. Barium titanate being perovskite material belongs to ABO3 family, shows tetragonal structure. In this present work, BaTiO3 with varying doping concentration of CeO2 (2 wt%) was fabricated by solid state reaction method. Structural and morphological study reveals a change in crystallite size and grain growth. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and a UV–VIS spectrophotometer were used to characterize the samples. Phases of the prepared samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction. The results of the investigation shows that pure barium titanate have no secondary phases. Pure form of barium titanate shows polycrystalline nature. Further, crystallite size, stress and strain for the doped sample were calculated using Scherrer method, Williamson-Hall analysis, Uniform deformation model (UDM), Uniform stress deformation model (USDM) and Uniform deformation energy density model (UDEDM) approaches. Crystallite size calculated by Scherrer method shows a variation with percentage doping. Doped sample shows reduce in crystallite size. Effect of size and strain induces X-ray peak broadening. In accordance with these findings, FE-SEM measurements demonstrate a shift in grain growth with Ce concentration with respect to pure barium titanate. X-ray diffraction results shows a good agreement with FE-SEM results. Peaks in the absorption are impacted by Ce ion doping concentration. An intriguing behavior of the ceramic is demonstrated by a considerable change in band gap with dopant. Cerium concentrations have a substantial impact on the physical and optical properties.