Hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of bismuth titanate regular tetrahedron crystallites

Bi12TiO20 (BTO) single crystals were synthesized by a hydrothermal process in KOH solution at 180 °C for 4 h from Ti(OC4H9)4 and Bi(NO3)3·5H2O compounds. The effects of processing parameters on the growth and morphology of BTO single crystals were investigated. The KOH concentration, reaction time and temperature had a great effect on the phase composition and morphology of the resultant crystals. BTO phase could not be obtained with KOH concentrations lower than 3 M or higher than 5 M. XRD, SEM and TEM were used to characterize the samples. BTO single crystals were regular tetrahedron in morphology and 10 μm or so in size.