A novel modification technology to achieve BaTiO3 conductive powders by Sm penetration at low temperatures

• We adopted Sm-penetration to modify BaTiO3 powders at low temperatures.
• BaTiO3 powders penetrated at 600 °C performed lowest resistivity.
• BaTiO3 powders penetrated at low temperatures were studied by XRD, SEM and XPS analysis.
• The process of Sm-penetration at low temperature has been proposed for the first time.

Rare earth penetration technology was adopted to achieve BaTiO3 conductive powders. The effects of the penetration temperature on the resistivity, phase composition and microstructure were investigated. The results indicated the variation trend of the resistivity at lower temperatures (<800 °C) was quite different from that at higher temperatures (>800 °C), Moreover, the resistivity of Sm-penetrated BaTiO3 powders at 600 °C (SBT-T1) was surprisingly low (2.41×10−1 Ω m), which can be a superior candidate for electronic application. Sm3+ cations have been penetrated into BaTiO3 powders effectively and Ba2+ has been replaced by Sm3+ according to XRD and XPS analysis. It was the homogeneous morphology of SBT-T1 powders and the highest content of Sm3+ cations that led to its lowest resistivity. Based on the experiments, the Sm-penetration process also has been discussed.