Giant dielectric, low dielectric loss, and non-ohmic properties of nanocrystalline CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂

A simple polymer pyrolysis method has been successfully used to prepare CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) nanoparticles by calcination the obtained precursor powder at a low temperature of 800 (CCTO-1) and 850 °C (CCTO-2) in air for 4 h. The XRD results show that both of the calcined powders (CCTO-1 and CCTO-2) are pure having perovskite structure with the crystallite sizes, as evaluated by the XRD line boardening technique, of 47.5 and 75 nm, respectively. The particle sizes as estimated from the bright field images of TEM were found to be in the range of 10–35 and 7–52 nm for CCTO-1 and CCTO-2, respectively. The further sintering of CCTO-1 and CCTO-2 at 1,050 °C in air for 6 h, CCTO-1A and CCTO-2A, are also pure with perovskite structure as indicated by the XRD results. The measurements of the dielectric constant (\( \varepsilon^{\prime } \)) and the low loss tangent (tanδ) at 1 kHz and 20 °C of CCTO-2A were found to be ~11,472 and ~0.0438, respectively. In addition, the CCTO-2A sample shows a small temperature coefficients (\( \left| {\Updelta \varepsilon^{\prime } } \right| < 15\,\% \)) in a wide temperature range from −50 to 110 °C. The non-Ohmic properties non-linear coefficient (α) of CCTO-1A and CCTO-2A were observed and the non-linear coefficient (α) of them determined in the range of 1–10 mA cm⁻² were found to be 12.00 and 7.26, respectively. Moreover, the breakdown field (E _b ) of CCTO-1A and CCTO-2A ceramics obtained at J = 1 mA cm⁻² were calculated and found to be 811 and 1,342 V cm⁻¹, respectively.