Observation of giant dielectric constant in CdCu3Ti4O12 ceramics

Although CdCu3Ti4O12 is isostructural to CaCu3Ti4O12, the room temperature low-frequency dielectric constant of the former compound was reported to be ∼400, only 1/25 of that of the latter material [M.A. Subramanian, et al., J. Solid State Chem. 151 (2000) 323]. In this communication, we report that the dielectric constant of CdCu3Ti4O12 can be remarkably increased by elevating the sintering temperature. The room temperature dielectric constant at 100 kHz achieves 9000, almost as much as that of CaCu3Ti4O12, for the sample sintered at 1283 K. The appearance of giant dielectric constant in CdCu3Ti4O12 is explained in terms of internal barrier layer capacitance (IBLC) effect with the subgrain boundary as the barrier. Our result supplies an approach in searching for new giant-dielectric-constant materials in the CaCu3Ti4O12 family.