Preparation and characterization of Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 ceramics from high-energy ball milling powders

Ultrafine Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 powder was synthesised from commercial PbO, TiO2 and ZrO2 powders using high-energy ball milling in air at room temperature without any post-annealing. The synthesised powders milled for different times were characterised using XRD, SEM, TEM and Raman spectra. XRD patterns and Raman spectra show that the perovskite phase of PZT can be formed from the mixture of the starting materials after milling for 20 h. The grain sizes of the powders was estimated from the XRD patterns and TEM images to be about 10 nm. The relationship between the microstructure of the PZT powders and the milling time is discussed. The PZT ceramics are derived from the synthesised powders by sintering the green pellets at 1100 C for 1 h. The dielectric properties of the PZT samples are comparable with those of the same composition PZT prepared by other methods, but the high-energy ball milling process is much easier than other reported methods. The high-energy ball milling method avoids the loss of volatile elements, such as Pb, Bi, in the synthesis of nano-powders with uniform compositions. 20 refs.