Investigation of dielectric, mechanical, and electrical properties of flame synthesized Y2/3Cu2.90Zn0.10Ti4O12 material

Abstract

A simple flame synthesis method was used to fabricate the Y2/3Cu2.90Zn0.10Ti4O12 (YCZTO) material. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed the single-phase formation of the YCZTO material directly sintered at 1050 °C for 15 h. Scanning electron microscopy showed well packed grains with high densification of morphology having the average grain size in range of 0.8–4 µm. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis showed that the Cu and Zn are in + 2 valence state confirming the Zn successfully incorporated at Cu2+ site. YCZTO exhibited the εr value of ∼ 1.4 × 103 and dielectric loss (tan δ) of ∼ 0.09 at 50 °C. The impedance spectroscopy analysis suggested that the obtained YCZTO material is electrically heterogeneous. The activation energies (Ea) for conduction at the grain boundaries at higher temperature range (110–150 °C) were found to be in the range ∼ 1.0 eV. Besides the dielectric property, YCZTO also showed the interesting mechanical and I–V characteristics. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.