Cu3TeO6 Dielectric Thick Films: Processing by Electrophoretic Deposition and Electrical Characterization

Abstract

Te-based compounds are promising dielectric candidates for Base-Metal Electrode Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors (BME-MLCCs) and Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCCs) applications due to their low sintering temperature and good dielectric properties. In spite of the possible compatibility with Cu electrodes for microelectronics, data on compounds of the CuO-TeO2 system are scarce. Recently, we have reported the phase formation process of Cu3TeO6 and the first dielectric data for Cu3TeO6 ceramics. Due to the interest for some applications in thick films, in this work Cu3TeO6 thick films were fabricated by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) on platinized silicon substrates under different processing conditions. The relation between processing and film’s quality was established. ~ 50 μm Cu3TeO6 thick films sintered at 860 oC for 5 h exhibit a permittivity of ~2 and dielectric loss of 0.01 at room temperature and the temperature coefficient of the dielectric permittivity is 9.5×103 ppm°C-1 at 1 MHz from 40 °C to 120 °C. It is expected that this dielectric performance, when compared with the one of Cu3TeO6 ceramic counterparts, improves if the density of the films is increased.