Liquid-phase sintering and chemical inhomogeneity in the BaTiO3BaCO3-LiF system

An ongoing goal of multilayer capacitor research is to lower the firing tem perature of gives a detailed study of sintering BaTiO3 with LiF flux, the d ielectric. This paper gives a detailed study of sintering BaTiO3 with LiF f lux,which lowers the firing temperature through liquid-phase sintering. A d etailed set of experiments is discussed concerning microstructural evolutio n and corresponding dielectric properties under a number of processing vari ables, including amount of LiF, sintering temperature, and particle size. D ifferent scales of-chemical inhomogeneity were observed in this system, whi ch reflect two underlying mechanisms: solution reprecipitation with limited grain growth at low temperatures, which resulted in distinct core-shell st ructures, and flux volatility, which gave rise to microscopic chemical inho mogeneity at higher sintering temperatures.