Preparation and properties of BaTiO₃ ceramics from the fine ceramic powder

In the present study, the BaTiO₃ ceramic from fine powder with the average particle size of 400 nm and with high tetragonality of 1.0103 was fabricated via solid-state route by employing two step pre-treatments. One is the wet ball milling of the commercially available BaCO₃ powder which solved the agglomeration problem and increased the contact points during calcination. The other one is the dry milling of the calcined BaTiO₃ powder which separated the powder into single particles and enhanced the stacking density during sintering. The obtained BaTiO₃ ceramics showed enhanced dielectric constant of 12,000 at Curie temperature of 125 °C, ferroelectric remnant polarization of 5.33 μC/cm² and coercive field of 163 V/mm. Besides, the improved BaTiO₃ ceramics showed piezoelectric constant d₃₃ of 200 pC/N, which was enhanced by 53.8% from the 130 pC/N of the normal BaTiO₃ ceramic.