Microstructural evolution and electric properties of mechanically activated BaTiO3 ceramics

Ceramic materials with a perovskite related structures such as non-doped and doped barium titanate ceramics are attracting much interest for their application as capacitor dielectrics, resistors, thermal sensors, etc. Since mechanical activation can be used in order to modify properties of these materials, in this study microstructure evolution and electric properties of mechanically activated BaTiO3 have been analyzed. The sintering process of high purity non-doped mechanically activated BaTiO3 was monitored using a sensitive dilatometer with a heating rate of 10 °C/min. Investigation of the microstructure evolution of mechanically activated BaTiO3 was performed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and digital pattern recognition (DPR) methods. A dielectric study of the paraelectric–ferroelectric phase transition in the barium titanate ceramics was performed by recording the temperature dependence of dielectric permittivity.