Structure and Dielectric Studies of Lanthanum Oxide Activated Niobium-Barium Titanate for Energy Storage Applications

A 10 mol% of La2O3 doped niobium-barium titanate (60-y) BaO –(40-x) TiO2 – y Nb2O5 – La2O3x (BTNb10La10) (where x = y = 10), BTNb10 and BTLa10 ferroelectric ceramics were prepared by solid state reaction, those are sintered at temperatures 1000 oC for 8 h and calcined at 1250 oC for 6 h to investigate various properties such as structure, morphology and dielectric that include electric hysteresis. Different phases of the BTNb10La10 ceramics were revealed and identified in XRD profile. La–O bending vibration band was identified at 541 cm-1 in the FTIR spectra of BTNb10La10 samples. A broad phonon vibrational Raman band was identified at 770 cm-1of BTNb10La10 ceramics due to the presence of La2O3. 132, 143 and 148 nm are the average particle sizes revealed in scanning electron microscope (SEM) for BTNb10, BTLa10 and BTNb10La10ferroelectrics, respectively. The recoverable energy storage density (Wrec) of the BTNb10La10 ferroelectric is found to be Wrec = 0.3370 J/cm3 with an energy storage efficiency of η = 94%. The slim and antiferroelectric features of electric hysteresis indicates that the BTNb10La10 ferroelectric could be a potential candidate for energy storage pulsed capacitor applications.