Achieving antiferroelectric materials with high dielectric tunability and low phase transition field by Ba-dopant and tape-casting

Dielectric tunable materials, owing to their nonlinear variation in dielectric constant with electric field, have garnered widespread applications in recent years, such as pulse compression, resonators, phase shifters, and tunable filters. In this work, we fabricated Pb_0.97−xBa_xLa_0.02[(Zr_0.55Sn_0.45)_0.9Ti_0.1]O₃ (x = 0, 0.04, 0.08, 0.1) antiferroelectric ceramic materials. First, Ba doping was employed to increase the tolerance factor t , facilitating the transition to the ferroelectric phase and reducing the phase transition electric field (from 57 kV cm⁻¹ to 13 kV cm⁻¹ ), while simultaneously enhancing the dielectric tunability. Further optimization was achieved through tape-casting to prepare dense ceramic thick films, which improved the operational electric field strength. This enabled polarization saturation at lower electric fields and reduced the dielectric constant under high electric fields, thereby further increasing the dielectric tunability. Ultimately, in Pb_0.87Ba_0.1La_0.02[(Zr_0.55Sn_0.45)_0.9Ti_0.1]O₃ composition ceramic thick films, a maximum dielectric constant of 4770 and a minimum dielectric constant of 345 were obtained under an electric field of 200 kV cm⁻¹, achieving a tunability of approximately 93%, indicating its broad application potential in electronic devices and functional materials.