Author(s)

Alexandre Gonçalves Pinheiro, Gilberto Dantas Saraiva, Josué Mendes Filho, Antonio Sergio Bezerra Sombra

Departamento de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil.
Faculdade de Educa??o Ciências e Letras do Sert?o Central, Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Quixadá, Brazil.

We prepared the Nano-sized bismuth titanate Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ (BIT) powders, through a high-energy ball milling process from their oxides Bi₂O₃ and TiO₂. This BIT phase can be formed after a milling process for 40 min. With an increasing milling time, this particle size of mixture is gradually reduced, thus, we have mostly an amorphous phase. The BIT ceramics were duly obtained by sintering the synthesized powders at temperatures ranging from 850°C to 1000°C. The BIT ceramics sintered at 1020°C for 1 h, exhibiting a density with 7.52 g/cm³ of a crystaline phase and a dielectric of K = 288.11 (100 Hz), as well as a dielectric loss of 0.05 (100 kHz). The High-energy ball milling process is a promising way to prepare BIT ceramics. After the preparation of the BIT, we doped it with the Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes which are properly obtained by a chemical vapour deposition (CVD), using nickel as a catalyst, as well as using acetilene at 720°C, and then proceeded with the dielectric and optical measurements.

Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ Ceramics; Ferroelectric; High-Energy Ball Milling; Sintering; Carbon Nanotubes; MWNT

A. Pinheiro, G. Saraiva, J. Filho and A. Sombra, "Preparation of Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂ (BIT) Ceramics via a High-Energy Ball Milling Process Doped with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs)," Materials Sciences and Applications, Vol. 4 No. 9, 2013, pp. 549-555. doi: 10.4236/msa.2013.49067.