Glass-free Li^sub 2^ZnTi^sub 3^O^sub 8^ low temperature cofired ceramics by pretreating raw materials

In this work, a method (abbreviated as LZT2) to obtain glass-free Li2ZnTi3O8 low temperature cofired ceramics was reported. For the LZT2, the raw materials of Li2CO3, ZnO and TiO2 were ball milled before mixing, while those for the traditional ceramic technique (abbreviated as LZT1) were directly used without further processing. The powders from LZT2 tended to be smaller and uniform, which lowered the optimized sintering temperature of ceramics from 1050 °C (LZT1) to 950 °C (LZT2). After sintering at 950 °C, LZT2 ceramics exhibit good microwave dielectric performance with [straight epsilon] r = 25.8, Q × f = 74,200 GHz (at ~5.9 GHz), τ f = -13 ppm/°C. Moreover, LZT2 ceramic was found to be chemically compatible with Ag when sintered at 950 °C for 2 h. These results indicate that the pretreatment of raw materials is a relatively simple and effective method to optimize the sinterability and microwave dielectric properties of LZT ceramics.