Structural, functional properties and enhanced thermal stability of bulk graded (Ba,Sr)TiO3 structures obtained by spark plasma sintering

Graded structures with different architectures were obtained by spark plasma sintering from (Ba1-xSrx)TiO3 (BST, x = 0.10; 0.20; 0.30) powders. The presence of the composition gradient was confirmed by structural and compositional investigations using X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The concentration gradient was either asymmetric (3 layers, starting with x = 0.10 and ending with x = 0.30) or symmetric (5 or 6 layers, starting and ending with x = 0.10, and with a single or double x = 0.30 layer in the middle, respectively). Electrical measurements reveal a decrease of the dielectric constant with increasing the number of the layers. It was found that the symmetric graded structure with 6 layers has the best thermal stability of both, the dielectric constant (variation of only 8% between zero and 100 °C) and the pyroelectric coefficient (6% variation between zero and 80 °C). In addition, an enhancement of the pyroelectric signal for frequencies above 100 Hz is obtained in symmetric structures, an effect that is attributed to the additive contributions of the signals originated from the layers with different Sr content.