Effect of microwave heating on the interdiffusion in BaTiO3–SrTiO3 binary ceramic system

Abstract

An investigation on the effect of microwave heating (2.45 GHz) on the interdiffusion process was carried out and compared with conventional heating for BaTiO3–SrTiO3 binary system in the temperature range of 1200–1400 °C. Interdiffusion coefficients were extracted using Boltzmann–Matano analysis for both heating methods. Consequently, microwave heating was determined to result in higher interdiffusion coefficients compared to conventional heating. Correspondingly, ∼27% decrease in the apparent activation energy of interdiffusion was found which was associated with faster diffusion under electromagnetic irradiation due to increased vacancy concentration and more open lattice structure in Ba-rich regions which could be exploited for unique experimentations and non-equilibrium/non-stoichiometric phase transformations to study their kinetics and formation mechanisms and grasp a better understanding on the dielectric properties of such perovskites.