Co-Precipitation Method for the Preparation of Nanocrystalline Ferroelectric SrBi2Nb2O9 Ceramics

A simple co-precipitation technique had been successfully applied for the preparation of pure ultrafine single phase SrBi2Nb2O9. Ammonium hydroxide and ammonium oxalate were used to precipitate Sr2 +, Bi3+ and Nb5+ cations simultaneously. No pyrochlore phase was found while heating powder at 850∘C and pure SrBi2Nb2O9 (SBN) phase was formed as revealed by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies. Particle size and morphology was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The room temperature dielectric constant at 1 kHz is 100. The ferroelectric hysteresis loop parameters of these samples were also studied.