Drs. Li Yueliang
National Center for Electron Microscopy in Beijing, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Authors | Yueliang Li, Zhenyu Lia, Fang Fang, Xiaohui Wang, Longtu Li and Jing Zhu Email | jzhu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Application | Significant Increase of Curie Temperature in Nano-scale BaTiO3 |
Authors | Yueliang Li, Zhenyu Lia, Fang Fang, Xiaohui Wang, Longtu Li and Jing Zhu |
Journal | Applied Physics Letters, 2014 |
Sample | Particles |
Topic | Phase Mapping, Thermal Stability, Size-property Relation |
Field | Chemistry, Material Science, Electronics |
Techniques | HREM |
Publication / D.O.I. | Full Publication Here |
Significant Increase of Curie Temperature in Nano-scale BaTiO3
ABSTRACT: The low Curie temperature (Tc = 130 °C) of bulk BaTiO3 greatly limits its applications. In this work, the phase structures of BaTiO3 nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 2.5 nm to 10 nm were studied at various temperatures by using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy (TEM) equipped with an in-situ heating holder. The results implied that each BaTiO3 nanoparticle was composed of different phases, and the ferroelectric ones were observed in the shells due to the complicated surface structure. The ferroelectric phases in BaTiO3 nanoparticles remained at 600 °C, suggesting a significant increase of Tc . Based on the in-situ TEM results and the data reported by others, temperature-size phase diagrams for BaTiO3 particles and ceramics were proposed, showing that the phase transition became diffused and the Tc obviously increased with decreasing size. The present work sheds light on the design and fabrication of advanced devices for high temperature applications.
DENSsolutions Comments:
Developing better technologies for efficient use of our nature resource relies on advances in new and improved nanostructure and nanomaterials. Understanding size-property relation play a crucial role in designing functional devices. (S)TEM, with enhanced by recent aberration correction, has become a powerful tool for nanomaterials characterization. It has the unique ability to image the size, shape, bulk/surface/interface structures of individual nano objects at sub-angstrom scale. Characterization of the particles over the whole temperature range provides a direct measurement of the thermal stability of the nano-objects. The link between the size and the thermal property of the particles is then able to be obtained.
The DENSsolutions heating system provides the minimal specimen drift at elevated temperature. The atomic structure of the sample, even light atoms, e.g. Oxygen, can be clearly imaged with high precision at elevated temperature, allowing different domain structures determined within nm size particles.