Growth and characterization of Ce and Nb doped barium strontium titanate single crystals

Abstract Single crystals of cerium and niobium doped barium strontium titanate were grown by high-temperature solution growth technique. The growth parameters were optimized to grow large size (8 × 7 × 3 mm 3 ) good quality crystals. Ce and Nb doping considerably reduced the twin formation and yielded bulk crystals suitable for capacitor applications. Layer and hopper growth structures were observed for Ce doping, while a spiral growth pattern was observed for Nb doping. The Ce doped crystals possessed tetragonal structure and their lattice parameters varied significantly. For Ce doping, the Curie temperature (T c ) and dielectric constant increased; for Nb doping, the T c decreased while the dielectric constant increased sharply. The spontaneous polarization (P s ) increased for both Ce and Nb doping.