Insight of the Influence of Cobalt Substitution on the Structural, Microstructural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Tetragonal Barium Titanate Ceramics

Abstract

The development of lead-free ferroelectric materials is essential for upcoming applications in energy and information storage. We comprehensively report the structural, optical, dielectric and electrical characteristics of BaTi1-x Co x O3 (0.00 ≤ x ≤ 0.10) ceramics prepared using the conventional solid-state route process. The synthesized sample features a single-phase tetragonal structure with P4mm symmetry, as confirmed by the X-ray diffraction investigation. SEM imaging clearly shows that the material was polydispersive. UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra of the BaTi1-xCoxO3 ceramics has been carried out in order to calculate the optical band gap of each composition. For the prepared samples, Cole-Cole plot of the complex impedance was examined over a wide temperature and frequency range. The compounds displayed non-Debye type dielectric relaxation. The Ferroelectric-Paraelectric phase transition is clearly visible in the T-dependent dielectric spectra for all the samples. After E-poling the ceramics, a well-defined genuine saturated hysteresis loop was established.