Dielectric and Piezoelectric Properties of 10% KF-Doped BaTiO3 Ceramics

10% KF-doped barium titanate powders, Ba0.9K0.1TiO2.9F0.1, were synthesized through a sol–gel process. The powders, calcined at 650 °C, consist of cubic crystalline particles of ∼70 nm in length; the particle size increases to ∼200 nm as the firing temperature increases to ca. 800 °C, above which F2 begins to evaporate. Dense ceramics were fabricated by the spark plasma sintering (SPS) method; the average grain size is ∼2 µm in lengths. The ceramics, well annealed at 1,000 °C in an O2 gas flow, have good dielectric and piezoelectric properties; the piezoelectric d33 value is 230 pC/N at room temperature. At the ferroelectric Curie temperature TC = 47 °C, the dielectric constant and loss tan δ are 10,000 and <5% at 10 kHz, respectively. The Curie–Weiss relation holds in the fully disordered cubic and ordered rhombohedral phases, showing the second order 1:2 relation. Below 10 kHz, large dielectric dispersion caused by a domain-wall motion appears at the temperature range of -50 to 107 °C. Some discussions are made for these dielectric properties of the ceramics.