Papers by Author: Youichi Mizuno

Abstract: Highly crystallized BaTiO₃ thin films were fabricated by a nanocrystal sintering process. Boron alkoxide was introduced into a slurry of Mn-doped BaTiO₃ nanocrystals with particle sizes of 5-7 nm. The deposited nanocrystal film on a (111)-oriented Pt/TiO₂/Al₂O₃ substrate was sintered at a low temperature of 800 °C and the obtained film had highly densified and oriented microstructures. We found that the boron additive enhanced the grain growth of nanoparticles and as a result the dielectric constant of the thin film increased to 1100 at 10 kHz, which is much higher than that of undoped BaTiO₃ thin films.

Abstract: Re-oxidation is an important thermal process to minimize oxygen vacancies and produce high reliable Ni-MLCCs. The re-oxidation of these devices is then investigated with a series of “in-situ” impedance measurements between 400 and 500 °C in air. From the relative impedance change, chemical diffusion coefficients, associated activation energy and effective equivalent circuit model are determined. Those values were found to be reasonable compared with previous researchers’ data. Moreover, the proposed effective equivalent circuit model successfully represents the real Ni-MLCC morphology. From transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), it is found that the electrical properties and reliabilities of the Ni-MLCCs re-oxidized under different conditions are identical.

Abstract: Structural changes induced by oxygen vacancies in tetragonal phase BaTiO₃ are studied with first principles calculations within density functional theory. In our calculations, the incorporation of oxygen vacancies greatly decreases c/a ratio of the tetragonal phase BaTiO₃, and a phase transition from tetragonal to cubic phase occurs when the incorporation of the oxygen vacancies reaches about 4%. Our results also shows that the generation of the oxygen vacancies slightly increases the volume of BaTiO₃, and the increases are typically less than 0.5% even in heavily reduced conditions.

Abstract: The lifetime determination model for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) is discussed. The accumulation of oxygen vacancies on the cathode/ceramics interface by an electro-migration process is a concept accepted by many researchers. However, the lifetimes and leakage currents measured during a highly accelerated lifetime test (HALT) could not be explained by this concept. To investigate the mechanism, we used a polarity reversal method during the HALT, which provided information on the dominant process for the leakage current. Thermally stimulated current (TSC) measurement provided the relative number of oxygen vacancies both on the cathode/ceramics interfaces and the grain boundaries. Moreover, the microstructure of the MLCC samples was evaluated by both electric property measurements and direct observation. From these results, we concluded that the grain boundaries controlled the leakage current as well as the lifetime.

Abstract: We researched the phenomenon that the permittivity of dielectric layers in multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) increases with the number of dielectric layers. Finite element method (FEM) shows that the internal residual stress in MLCC was generated by the difference of thermal expansion coefficient between internal electrodes and dielectric layers. We developed a electric measurement system with applying external stress for understanding the stress influence on dielectric properties. The compressive stress along electric field increased the polarization. The polar nano regions (PNRs) in shell composition dielectrics were easily influenced by stress. Based on these results, the relationship between the number of dielectric layers and their permittivity in MLCCs was explained.