Electromorphic ceramics in extreme environment parametric device applications

Diffuse-transition electromorphic ceramics have been investigated for parametric device applications in extreme temperature and radiation environments. The circuit properties of nonlinear capacitors fabricated from such materials were found to be relatively constant over a temperature range of hundreds of degrees centigrade and extremely insensitive to nuclear radiation. Because of dielectric relaxation behavior, efficient parametric device applications are limited to below 10 MHz with presently available materials. An antiferroelectric composition provided more efficient parametric amplification at the higher frequencies than did the ferroelectric compositions investigated.