Studies on structural, dielectrics and magnetics properties of two stage sintered (1-x) Mg0.3Zn0.7Fe2O3–xBa0.7Sr0.3TiO3 composite

Abstract The (1-x)Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4 – (x)Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 composites with x = 0.40, 0.50 and 0.60 were prepared by solid state reaction under two step sintering. Two step sintering conditions were determined by the first step (T1) at 1350 °C for holding time of 60 min and cooled down to the second sintering temperature (T2) with different temperatures between 900 and 1100 °C for holding time of 5 h. The sample with high percentage of shrinkage and dense ceramic was obtained from 0.4Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4-0.6Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 with sintering of T2 at 1100 °C. XRD pattern showed combination of ferrite phase (Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4) and ferroelectric phase (Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3) and secondary phase of ZnO. Rietveld analysis confirmed main phases of Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4 and Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3, including MgFe2O4 and ZnO as secondary phase. It was found that the unit cell volume of Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 was smaller than Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4 unit cell volume. Therefore, the short distance between ions of Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 phase produced the dense composites with increasing ferroelectric phase contents. The average grain size of ceramic was in the range of 0.74–1.07 µm with grain square shape in Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4 phase and the average grain size of 0.59–0.70 µm with round oval shape in Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 phase. The dielectric constant was between 0.8 × 103 and 5.4 × 103 in the temperature range of 275 °C − 360 °C. The highest dielectric constant was obtained from 0.6Mg0.7Zn0.3Fe2O4 −0.4Ba0.7Sr0.3TiO3 with T1 at 1350 °C with holding time for 60 min and T2 at 900 °C with holding time for 5 h. The hysteresis measurement was carried out to determine saturation magnetization, remanent magnetization and coercivity of the composites. The results revealed that higher concentration of ferrite led to optimal magnetic properties.