Effect of Fe₂O₃ doping on phase formation, microstructure, electric and magnetic properties of (Ba_0.85Ca_0.15)(Ti_0.90Zr_0.10)O₃ ceramics

ABSTRACT

The effect of Fe₂O₃ doping (0–1.0 wt%) on phase formation, microstructure, electric and magnetic properties of (Ba_0.85Ca_0.15)(Ti_0.90Zr_0.10)O₃ ceramics was investigated. The samples were fabricated by the solid state combustion technique with glycine used as fuel. Powders and ceramics were calcined and sintered at temperature of 1050 °C and 1450 °C for 2 h, respectively. In XRD result, the phase formation showed pure perovskite structure with a coexisted of orthorhombic and tetragonal phases in all samples. Rietveld refinement analysis result indicated that the tetragonality increase with increasing the amount of Fe₂O₃ doping. The grain size continuously decreased when Fe₂O₃ doping increased due to the Fe₂O₃ inhibited the growth of grain. The density and dielectric constant tended to decrease when Fe₂O₃ doping increased. The remnant polarization (P_r) and piezoelectric coefficient (d₃₃) tend to reduce when Fe₂O₃ doping increased owing to the distortion of phase formation induced defect dipole moments under an electric field. Without Fe₂O₃ doping, the ceramic showed diamagnetic behavior whereas all of Fe₂O₃ doped ceramics exhibited paramagnetic behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Phase formation
• microstructure
• dielectric properties
• magnetic properties
• piezoelectric coefficient

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Naresuan University for their supporting facilities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Higher Education Research Promotion and National Research University project of Thailand, Office of the Higher Education Commission.