Abstract
A family of ceramic composites fabricated from (Sr1-xPbx)TiO3 (SPT) and MgO show promise for room temperature electric field tunable ferroelectric applications. At the SPT (x = 0.2) composition room temperature is far above the Curie temperature and in a SPT-MgO (50:50 by weight) composite the dielectric response is almost anhysteretic. At this composition the composite is dielectrically robust and can be operated at field levels up to 175 kV/cm leading to tunability of 30% and a figure of merit, K-factor (tunability over tan δ) of more than 800. SPT-MgO composites with ionic polarization would be tuned by induced polarization under bias.
Acknowledgments
One of the authors (Y. S.) would like to express gratitude to Mr. Paul J. Moses and Mr. Jeffrey A. Long for the assistance in the electrical property measurements. In addition, the author would like to express appreciation for Mrs. Dee A. Baumgardner. Moreover, one of the authors (A. S. B.) would like to appreciate suggestions provided by one of his colleagues at UTSA. Furthermore, Taylor & Francis is acknowledged to grant a permission to use figures in Y. S. et al., Ferroelectrics, 400, 165 (2010). Financial support was partially provided by the DARPA FAME (Frequency Agile Materials for Electronics) program (contract No. DABT 63-98-1-002) and the NSF meta-material program.