Investigations of structural, dielectric and ferroelectric behavior of europium substituted SrBi2Ta2O9 ferroelectric ceramics

Europium substituted samples of the compositions Sr1-xEuxBi2Ta2O9 (x = 0.0, 0.025, 0.050, 0.10 and 0.20) were synthesized by solid state reaction method and studied for their structural, dielectric and ferroelectric properties. The X-ray diffractograms confirmed the formation of single phase layered perovskite structure in all the samples. The temperature variation of dielectric constant shows that the Curie temperature (T-c) decreases on increasing concentration of europium. The dielectric loss reduces significantly with europium addition. The P-E studies of the Eu-substituted SBT ceramics show that the remanent polarization increases with increasing concentration of europium. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.