Effect of Li2CO3 addition in BiFeO3-BaTiO3 ceramics on the sintering temperature, electrical properties and phase transition

In this work, we reported that a BiFeO3-BaTiO3 (BF-BT) ceramics with Li2CO3 as a sintering aid was fabricated in order to develop a new materials sintered at low-temperature for piezoelectric applications. The phase transition, microstructure, dielectric, piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties, and temperature stability of the ceramics were investigated. The results show that the addition of Li2CO3 improves the electrical properties of BF-BT ceramics and decreases the sintering temperature from 990 °C to 930 °C. The obtained Li2CO3-doped ceramics sintered at 930 °C when x = 0.3 mol% have an optimized electrical properties, which were listed as follows: (kp = 0.294, Qm = 38.33, tanδ = 0.043 and d33 = 163 pC/N), high Curie temperatures (Tc = 508 °C) and high depolarization temperature (Td = 480 °C). These results indicate that this material is a promising candidate for high-temperature lead-free piezoelectric applications.