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Low-loss tungsten-bronze microwave dielectric ceramics are dielectric materials with potential application value for miniaturized dielectric filters and antennas in the fifth-generation (5G) communication technology. In this work, a novel Al/Nd co-doping method of Ba4Nd9.33Ti18O54 (BNT) ceramics with a chemical formula of Ba4Nd9.33+z/3Ti18-zAlzO54 (BNT-AN, 0 ≤ z ≤ 2) was proposed to improve the dielectric properties through structural and defect modulation. Together with Al-doped ceramics (Ba4Nd9.33Ti18-zAl4z/3O54, BNT-A, 0 ≤ z ≤ 2) for comparison, the ceramics were prepared by a solid state method. It is found that Al/Nd co-doping method has a significant effect on improving the dielectric properties compared with Al doping. As the doping amount z increased, the relative dielectric constant (εr) and the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τf) of the ceramics decreased, and the Q×f values of the ceramics obviously increased when z ≤ 1.5. Excellent microwave dielectric properties of εr = 72.2, Q×f = 16,480 GHz, and τf = +14.3 ppm/℃ were achieved in BNT-AN ceramics with z = 1.25. Raman spectroscopy and thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) technique were firstly combined to analyze the structures and defects in microwave dielectric ceramics. It is shown that the improvement on Q×f values was originated from the decrease in the strength of the A-site cation vibration and the concentration of oxygen vacancies ( VO), demonstrating the effect and mechanism underlying for structural and defect modulation on the performance improvement of microwave dielectric ceramics.


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Structure, defects, and microwave dielectric properties of Al-doped and Al/Nd co-doped Ba4Nd9.33Ti18O54 ceramics

Show Author's information Weijia GUOZhiyu MAYu LUOYugu CHENZhenxing YUE( )Longtu LI
State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract

Low-loss tungsten-bronze microwave dielectric ceramics are dielectric materials with potential application value for miniaturized dielectric filters and antennas in the fifth-generation (5G) communication technology. In this work, a novel Al/Nd co-doping method of Ba4Nd9.33Ti18O54 (BNT) ceramics with a chemical formula of Ba4Nd9.33+z/3Ti18-zAlzO54 (BNT-AN, 0 ≤ z ≤ 2) was proposed to improve the dielectric properties through structural and defect modulation. Together with Al-doped ceramics (Ba4Nd9.33Ti18-zAl4z/3O54, BNT-A, 0 ≤ z ≤ 2) for comparison, the ceramics were prepared by a solid state method. It is found that Al/Nd co-doping method has a significant effect on improving the dielectric properties compared with Al doping. As the doping amount z increased, the relative dielectric constant (εr) and the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τf) of the ceramics decreased, and the Q×f values of the ceramics obviously increased when z ≤ 1.5. Excellent microwave dielectric properties of εr = 72.2, Q×f = 16,480 GHz, and τf = +14.3 ppm/℃ were achieved in BNT-AN ceramics with z = 1.25. Raman spectroscopy and thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) technique were firstly combined to analyze the structures and defects in microwave dielectric ceramics. It is shown that the improvement on Q×f values was originated from the decrease in the strength of the A-site cation vibration and the concentration of oxygen vacancies ( VO), demonstrating the effect and mechanism underlying for structural and defect modulation on the performance improvement of microwave dielectric ceramics.

Keywords: microwave dielectric ceramics, Ba4Nd9.33Ti18O54 (BNT), Al and Al/Nd doping, structural and defect modulation

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Publication history

Received: 09 August 2021
Revised: 06 December 2021
Accepted: 09 December 2021
Published: 27 February 2022
Issue date: April 2022

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© The Author(s) 2021.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFB0406301), the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2020B010176001), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51872160).

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