Microstructure Evolution and Dielectric Properties of Nb/Mn and Dy/Mn Doped Barium Titanate Ceramics

Nb/Mn and Dy/Mn codoped BaTiO3 specimens, prepared by conventional solid-state procedure, were investigated regarding their microstructural and dielectric properties. The powders were doped with Nb2O5 and Dy2O3 with an amount of 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 at% of dopants ions. The MnO content of 0.05 at% Mn was the same in both types of samples. The specimens were sintered in air at 1320 and 1350 °C for two hours. Microstructural and compositional studies were done by SEM equipped with EDS. In low doped BaTiO3 the grain size is around 1-3 μm, while in ceramics with high dopant content (1.0 at%) the grain size distribution was in the range of 3-10 μm. High dielectric constant is associated with small-grained microstructure, being 5000 for Dy-doped and 6500 for Nb-doped BaTiO3 sintered at 1350 °C. The specimens with low dopant content demonstrate the Curie-Weiss behavior in a paraelectric regime. A nearly flat permittivity response with temperature was obtained for specimens with 0.5 and 1.0 at% Dy content. Loss tangents were in the range of 0.03 - 0.32.