Surface modification of starting powder for dense polycrystalline SrTiO3 ceramics

Since multifunctional transparent titanate ceramics were reported, these materials have become potential materials for electro-optical devices. So far, the applications are limited because the fabrication of transparent titanates involves expensive sintering techniques (e.g., hot iso-pressure sintering, vacuum sintering, and spark plasma sintering). This study modified the SrTiO3 starting powders using the common acids of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid. Then the dense SrTiO3 specimens were obtained using pressureless sintering. The experimental results show that acetic acid dissolves more Sr in the powder surface to create the amorphous structure, and this Ti-rich amorphous structure provides homogenous liquid phase sintering to increase the grain boundary mobility for the dense SrTiO3.