Microwave and Terahertz Properties of Spark-Plasma-Sintered Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO4 Ceramics

Zr0.8Sn0.2TiO3 (ZST) powders synthesized by solid-state reaction were subject to processing by spark plasma sintering (SPS). A single-phase ceramic with a high relative density of 95.7% and 99.6% was obtained for sintering temperatures of 1150 °C and 1200 °C, respectively, and for a dwell time of 3 min. In order to reduce the oxygen vacancies, as-sintered discs were annealed in air at 1000 °C. The dielectric loss of the annealed samples, expressed by the Q × f product, measured in the microwave (MW) domain, varied between 35 THz and 50 THz. The intrinsic losses (Q × f ~ 60 THz) were derived by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS).