A Novel Mineralizer-Facilitated, Composition-Controllable Route to the Synthesis of Small Cubes of Bismuth Sodium Potassium Titanate

Abstract

A novel mineralizer-facilitated, composition controllable, synthesis route to small cubic particles of the lead-free piezoelectric, sodium potassium bismuth titanate, (Na_1-xK_x)_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃ (NKBT) (0 < x ≤ 0.23), has been developed using a hydrothermal reaction technique. The systematic control of chemical composition is achieved by the variation of the Na/K ratio in the mixture of NaOH and KOH used as mineralizers. This innovative method lays the groundwork for the facile production of small NKBT crystalline particles for further applications in fine ceramics, thick films and composites as well as in associated piezoelectric devices.

Keywords:

• Perovskites
• hydrothermal reaction
• piezoelectric materials
• powder technology
• sodium potassium bismuth titanate

Acknowledgments

HY acknowledge financial support from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC), Shaanxi University of Science and Technology (SUST) in the form of the Doc. Start Fund of (Grant No. BJ09-14), and Education Ministry of Shaanxi Province of China in the form of the Special Fund for Natural Science (Grant No. 09JK367). YL acknowledge financial support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) in the form of ARC Discovery Grants.

The contributions of Ray L. Withers in XRD analysis, Zbigniew Stachurski in research program design are gratefully acknowledged.