A new glass-free low-temperature fired microwave ceramic

Excerpt

Reducing the sintering temperature without affecting the properties is a challenging problem in LTCC material research. Low melting glass addition, chemical processing and small particle size of starting materials are three main methods normally used to reduce the sintering temperature of these dielectric ceramics. However, fine powders prepared by wet chemical processing such as the sol–gel process complicate the fabrication method and increase the cost. Addition of low melting glass either leads to poor microwave dielectric properties or significantly increases the possibility of chemical interaction with the metal electrode due to the presence of complicated phases in the LTCC system [1, 2]. So, a glass-free LTCC material with appropriate microwave dielectric properties is strongly desired for the multilayer structure applications. A number of glass-free LTCC materials have been reported [3‐10]. However, most of these materials have a high τ_f, which is a key parameter of microwave dielectric ceramic. The search for an ideal glass-free low-temperature fired material with good properties is still continuing. In the present communication, we report the microwave dielectric properties of xZrTe₃O₈–(1 − x)CeTe₂O₆ for the first time. Also, the τ_f of the CeTe₂O₆ ceramics has been tailored by TiO₂ addition. …