Effects of strontium/lanthanum co-doping on the dielectric properties of CaCu3Ti4O12 prepared by reactive sintering

The extremely high dielectric constant of the cubic perovskite CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) has attracted increasing attention for a variety of capacitive elements in microelectronic device applications. In this research, the influence of Sr and La replacing Ca and Cu, respectively, to simultaneously controlling the intrinsic properties of grain boundaries in a co-doped CCTO ceramic has been investigated. The preparation was done using high purity compounds milled and mixed by mechano-synthesis and further consolidated by reactive sintering without calcination. Characterization by XRD confirmed the formation of single-phase CCTO ceramic and a residual amount CaTiO₃. The microstructure and composition analyzed by SEM/EDX showed a smaller grain size for the co-doped CCTO. Impedance measurements indicated the smallest dielectric loss for the co-doped ceramics compare to pure and single-doped CCTO, while reaching a higher dielectric permittivity than single-doped ceramics. The CCTO-SrLa sample also showed high thermal stability of the dielectric permittivity between 100 and 470?K, and the lowest loss between 200 and 300?K. This behavior was attributed to the lower bulk resistance exhibited by the co-doped sample.