Composition and temperature dependent electrical properties of BaTiO3:ZnO composites

•Ferroelectric/semiconductor BaTiO3:ZnO composites were prepared and investigated.•The composites show improved electrical properties at room temperature.•The composites have stable electrical properties up to nearly 100 °C.•This work provides a new way to develop high performance composites.

Ferroelectric/polar semiconductor BaTiO3:xZnO composites (BT:xZnO) have been prepared and investigated. The ZnO particles distribute at the BT grain boundaries to form 0–3 type composites, i.e., the isolated 0-dimensional ZnO particles are embedded in the 3-dimensional BT matrix. With increasing ZnO content, the Curie temperature keeps constant, however, both the dielectric constant and ferroelectric polarization of the composites increase, reaching the maximum at x=0.3, and then tend to decrease. Furthermore, the composite has improved temperature stability of ferroelectric polarization and field-induced strain up to ~100 °C. It is believed that ZnO can induce a built-in electric field which has influence on the domain switching and thus on the observed composition- and temperature-dependent electrical properties. This work may provide some new clues for developing ferroelectric composites with high performance.