Study of tungsten oxide effect on the performance of BaTiO₃ ceramics

BaTiO₃/(WO₃)_x ceramics (where x = 0, 0.5, 1, 2 and 5 wt%) were prepared by solid state reaction. X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy and ultraviolet–visible diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry were used to investigate the structure, morphology and optical properties, respectively. The electrical and dielectric properties were also performed for different synthesized ceramics. A pure phase was obtained for x = 0.5 wt% ceramic, nevertheless a secondary phase was detected for x ≥ 1 wt% ceramics. The grains size increases for x = 0.5 wt% ceramic and then reduces abruptly with further increasing WO₃ content. The increase of grains size and the absence of impurities were all efficient to enhance the dielectric properties. A suitable WO₃ content leads to obtain ceramics having high dielectric constant and low tangent loss, which is encouraging for radio frequencies and microwaves applications.