A coprecipitation technique to prepare LiNbO3 powders

A simple co-precipitation technique has been successfully applied for the preparation of pure ultrafine single phase LiNbO3 (LN). An aqueous mixture of ammonium carbonate and ammonium hydroxide was used to precipitate Li+ and Nb5+ cations as carbonate and hydroxide respectively. On heating at 700 °C this precursor, produces LN powders. For comparison, LN powders were also prepared by the traditional solid state method. The phase contents and lattice parameters were studied by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). Particle size and morphology was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM).