A feasible pathway to stabilize monoclinic and tetragonal phase coexistence in barium titanate-based ceramics

© 2022. The Royal Society of Chemistry The present work has been supported by the Ministerio Español de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) through the projects: RTI2018-095856-B-C21 and RTI2018-095303-A-C52; Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital (MINECO) by PID2020-114192RB-C41; and Comunidad de Madrid, Spain, by S2018/NMT-4321 NANOMAGCOST and ‘‘Doctorados Industriales’’ project (IND2020/IND-17375), which is co-financed by the European Social Fund. A. S. acknowledges the financial support from the Comunidad de Madrid for an ‘‘Atracción de Talento Investigador’’ contract (2017-t2/IND5395). A. P. received funding from grant PRE2019-0875001234, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Spain. R. E. Rojas-Hernandez acknowledges financial support from the Estonian Research Council (grants PSG-466).
Multiphase coexistence has attracted significant interest in recent years because its control has entailed a significant breakthrough for the piezoelectric activity enhancement of lead-free piezoelectric oxides. However, the comprehension of phase coexistence still has many controversies including an adequate synthesis process and/or the role played by crystalline phases in functional properties. In this study, functional barium titanate [BaTiO_(3), (BTO)]-based materials with tunable functional properties were obtained by compositional modification via Bismuth (Bi) doping. Towards this aim, we systematically synthesized BTO-based materials by a sol-gel method, focusing on the control of Bi substitution in the BaTiO_(3) structure. In particular, we found that the substitution of Bi^(+3) leads to the stabilization of a monoclinic-tetragonal (M-T) phase boundary close to room temperature, which facilities the polarization process of the system. As a surprising result, we believe that the simple and cost-effective strategy and design principles described in this work open up the possibility of obtaining BTO-based lead-free ceramics with enhanced properties induced by the stabilization of the phase coexistence, expanding their application range.
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) / FEDER
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
Estonian Research Council
Comunidad de Madrid
Depto. de Física de Materiales
Fac. de Ciencias Físicas
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