An aqueous-solution based low-temperature pathway to synthesize giant dielectric CaCu3Ti4O12—Highly porous ceramic matrix and submicron sized powder

A simple, cost-effective and environment-friendly pathway for preparing highly porous matrix of giant dielectric material CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) through combustion of a completely aqueous precursor solution is presented. The pathway yields phase-pure and impurity-less CCTO ceramic at an ultra-low temperature (700 °C) and is better than traditional solid-state reaction schemes which fail to produce pure phase at as high temperature as 1000 °C (Li, Schwartz, Phys. Rev. B 75, 012104). The porous ceramic matrix on grinding produced CCTO powder having particle size in submicron order with an average size 300 nm. On sintering at 1050 °C for 5 h the powder shows high dielectric constants (>10⁴ at all frequencies from 100 Hz to 100 kHz) and low loss (with 0.05 as the lowest value) which is suitable for device applications. The reaction pathway is expected to be extended to prepare other multifunctional complex perovskite materials.