Effect of microwave sintering on the microstructure and electric properties of (Zn,Mg)TiO3-based multilayer ceramic capacitors

In this study, the effects of microwave sintering on the sintering behaviour, microstructure and silver diffusion of (Zn,Mg)TiO3-based multilayer ceramic capacitors (ZMT MLCCs) with pure silver electrodes were investigated. The energy dispersive spectroscopy results showed that the silver ions diffused into the dielectric layer significantly when the ZMT MLCC was sintered with conventional processing at 900 °C. However, sintering of ZMT MLCC at 900 °C using microwave processing was found to effectively suppress silver ion diffusion into the dielectric layer. The concentration of silver ions was identified by wavelength dispersive spectroscopy, which showed that the Ag ion concentrations for conventional and microwave sintering are approximately 1.0 at.% and below 0.4 at.%, respectively. The observed difference may be due to different kinetics between conventional and microwave sintering.