Structural, Morphological and Thermal Decomposition Studies of Calcium and Hafnium Modified BaTiO3 Electro Ceramics

Abstract Calcium and hafnium co-doped barium titanate could be used as a replacement for lead zirconate titanate, which is a lead-based ferroelectric material. Solid state reaction accompanied by the usual sintering technique is the classical ceramic-processing method, which demands a lot of time and effort. The present work aims to make the process a lot easier and quicker by employing a modified sol-gel combustion technique to synthesize polycrystalline Ba0.85Ca0.15Ti(1-x)HfxO3 (x=0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15) electro ceramics . The molar ration is fixed at 1:1 for metal and citric acid at pH ~ 1. It was found that Ba0.85Ca0.15Ti(1-x)HfxO3 (where x=0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15) crystallizes completely at around 1000 °C which is much lower than traditional methods. The structure supposedly displays a tetragonal symmetry with the P4mm space group as confirmed through x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy.