Synchronous achievement on preparation and modification of BaTiO3 conductive powders through Sm gaseous penetration to gel precursors

Abstract In order to obtain conductive powders with excellent performance at low cost and short preparation cycles, the gaseous penetration of Sm to BaTiO 3 gel precursors was adopted to realize the synthesis and modification in only one step, which simplifies the preparation process by omitting the calcination procedure. Changes in constitution, structure and electrical properties of the modified materials were also investigated. The XPS and XRD illustrate that Sm does penetrate into the BaTiO 3 system and the modified BaTiO 3 materials own typically perovskite structure. The result indicates that the gaseous penetration of Sm owns the ability to dramatically decrease the resistivity, and the resistivity of Sm-penetrated BaTiO 3 powders can be decreased to 15.9 Ω m. The materials obtained by the Sm-penetration to BaTiO 3 gel precursors also exhibit higher dielectric properties as well as better stability on conductive behavior, and the grain-boundary resistance is much smaller.