Synthesis and characterization of nanostructured Bismuth-doped barium niobate ceramics

Abstract

Bismuth-doped barium niobate perovskite i.e., Ba(Nb1-xBix)O3 (BNBI) was synthesized by the solid-state reaction method. Structural characterization was performed using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and microstructure was studied by scanning electron micrograph. X-ray studies revealed that all the samples exhibited tetragonal structure, whereas a cubic structure was shown for bismuth concentration x=0.1, 0.2, and 0.4. The d-spacing (observed and calculated), intensity (observed and calculated) for the prominent peak reflections were compared and are found to be in good agreement. The density was measured by liquid displacement method and compared with X-ray density. Relative density is nearly 80%. Grain size, calculated by linear intercept method from the images obtained by SEM are in the range of micrometers. The crystallite size obtained by XRD data and Scherrer's equation is in the range of 10-16nm.