Electric properties of Bi4Ti3O12(BIT)–CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) composite substrates for high dielectric constant devices

A study of the effect of the presence of BIT (Bi4Ti3O12) in the dielectric and optical properties of the CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) is presented. The samples were prepared by the solid state procedure. Mechanical alloying followed by the solid state procedure has been used successfully to produce powders of CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) and BIT (Bi4Ti3O12) to be used in the composites. We also look at the effect of the grain size of the BIT and CCTO in the final properties of the composite. The samples were studied using X-Ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman and infrared spectroscopy. We also did a study of the dielectric function K and dielectric loss of the samples. The role played by the grain size of CCTO and BIT in the dielectric constant and structural properties of the substrates are discussed. For frequencies below 10 MHz the K value presented by the CCTO100 sample is always higher than the K value presented by the BIT100 sample. At 100 Hz the value of K 1900 for the CCTO100 sample and 288 for the BIT100 sample. However for the composite sample one has an unexpected result. The dielectric constant is higher for all the frequencies under study. At 100 Hz the value of the K is around 10.000 for the BIT10 sample. Which is more than one order bigger compared to the CCTO100 value for the same frequency. Therefore, these measurements confirm the potential use of such materials for small high dielectric planar devices. These composites are also attractive for capacitor applications and certainly for microelectronics, microwave devices (cell mobile phones for example), where the miniaturization of the devices is crucial.