Effect of WO3 on the sintering behavior, microstructure, and dielectric loss of Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 Ceramics

In the present work, effect of WO3 dopant on the sintering behavior, microstructure evolution, and microwave dielectric loss of Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 ceramics were systematically investigated. (1-x) Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 – (x) WO3 compounds, where x=0, 0.002, 0.004, 0.008, and 0.02, were prepared by the conventional solid state synthesis route followed by sintering at 1300-1450ºC for 10h at air atmosphere. Solid solution limit of WO3 oxide in the Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 compound and formation of any secondary phase were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. In addition, the obtained XRD patterns were simulated by Rietveld refinement and degree of 1:2 cation ordering was calculated based on the refinement results. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was employed to study microstructural development of the ceramic samples and to directly identify secondary phase formation and their morphology. XRD results demonstrated that WO3 could solve into Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 structure for x<0.02, while detailed investigation by SEM directly indicated that even for Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 – 0.002 WO3 (x=0.002) composition additional phases were precipitated during high-temperature sintering. According to the XRD results, it was found that BaWO4, and Ba9CoNb14O45 compounds were formed as secondary phases. On the other hand, Rietveld refinement simulation showed that addition of WO3 into Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 results in a significant decline in the 1:2 cation ordering degree, where it was deceased from 95% to 59% when x was increased from x=0 to x=0.02. Quality factor, Q, (inverse of dielectric loss, 1/tanδ) of the prepared ceramics were measured at the microwave frequency range and it was found that incorporation of WO3 noticeably lowered the quality factor of Ba(Co1/3Nb2/3)O3 materials, where Q×f (f denotes resonance frequency) was measured to be 61,000 GHz for x=0 composition, whereas, measurements did not show any resonant peaks for x=0.02 ceramics, which means the ceramics suffer from a huge microwave dielectric loss.