Influence of MgO Content on Microstructure and Dielectric Properties in (BaSr)TiO₃ Ceramics

Barium strontium titanium oxide (BSTO) has great advantages and potentiality for the application of microwave technology. In order to be used in phased array antennas, high dielectric tunability, relatively low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss are required. In this paper, MgO was mixed into BSTO and the microstructure and dielectric properties of MgO-mixed BSTO bulk ceramics were investigated. The mole ratio of Ba and Sr was rather fixed to 5:5 in this study. It is observed that a small amount of MgO (5 wt%) has gone beyond the solubility limits of Mg in BSTO. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of BSTO ceramics decreased with the increase of the content of MgO mixed. However, the tunability of MgO-mixed BSTO ceramics decreased at the same time. 20wt% MgO-mixed BSTO ceramics exhibits preferable dielectric properties with acceptable tunability.