Sintering behaviour of Ba xSr 1-xTiO 3

This paper deals with the sintering behaviour of Barium Strontium Titanate (BST). Two methods were examined; method 1: BaTiO 3 + SrTiO 3 source powders; method 2: BaCO 3 + SrCO 3 + TiO 2 source powders. Commercially available 50 nm BST (x = 0.60) powder was used to investigate the effect of particle size on activation energy (E a). Discs were sintered in a Netzsch 402C Dilatometer and E a for the powders were obtained by applying the Arrhenius expression. The results indicate powders made from both methods display a varying trend in E a over a range of x. The commercial powder yielded a higher Ea compared with powder made from method 1.