Synthesis and Characteristics of MgO Coated BST-Mg2TiO4 Composite Ceramics

Abstract

The (Ba, Sr)TiO3 (hereafter BST) ceramics are promising candidate for applying in tunable devices. MgO coated BST-Mg2TiO4 (BSTM-MT) composite ceramics were prepared to obtain the low dielectric constant, low dielectric loss, good dielectric constant temperature stability, and high tunability of BST ceramics. The Ba0.55Sr0.40Ca0.05TiO3 nanoparticles were coated with MgO using the precipitation method and then mixed with Mg2TiO4 powders to fabricate BSTM-MT composite ceramics. The morphologies, phases, elements, and dielectric properties of the sintered ceramics were investigated. The core-shell structure of BST powder wrapped with MgO was clearly observed from the TEM image. After sintered at 1100 °C for 2 h, the composite ceramics expressed dense microstructures from SEM images and two main phases BST and Mg2TiO4 were detected in the XRD patterns. The dielectric constant and loss tangent were both reduced after the coating. The reduced dielectric constant and loss tangent of BSTM-MT were 190, 0.0011 (2MHz), respectively. The ceramics exhibited the diffuse phase transition near the Curie temperature and the Curie temperature shifted from 10 °C to 5 °C after the coating. Since the continuous Ti-O bonds were disconnected with the MgO coating, the tunability was reduced to 15.14 % under a DC bias field of 1.1 kV/mm. The optimistic dielectric properties made it useful for the application of tunable capacitors and phase shifters.