The Influence of Microwave Sintering on Microstructure and Dielectric Property of (Zn,Mg)TiO3-based Mulitlayer Ceramic Capacitor

The effects of microwave sintering on the sintering behaviour, the microstructure and the silver diffusion of (Zn,Mg)TiO3 based multilayer ceramic capacitors (ZMT' MLCCs) with pure silver electrodes were investigated in this study,. The energy dispersive spectroscopy result showed that the silver ions diffused into the dielectric 1ayer significantly when ZMT'MLCC was sintered directly up to 900℃ (conventional sintering). However, ZMT' MLCC was fired at 900℃ using microwave sintering; it was found to effectively suppress silver ion diffusion into the dielectric layer. For example, the concentration of silver ions was identified by energy dispersive spectrometer, and both the Ag ion concentrations for conventional and microwave sintering arc 2.0 and 0.1 at.% respectively. The result for this is may be due to different sintering kinetics between conventional and microwave sintering. To prove the effect of silver ion diffusion the insulation resistance of ZMT' MLCCs, the insulation resistance under different sintering conditions was measured at 85℃ and 95% relative humidity atmosphere. The insulation resistance of ZMT' MLCCs with conventional sintering was degraded obviously, which was compared with that with the microwave sintering.