Nanopowders of the barium zirconium titanate for applications in electronic devices

For decades that the piezoelectric materials play important roles in various applications. Nowadays, it is of importance that we should avoid the materials which are environmentally toxic. We propose the barium zirconium titanate (BaZr_xTi_1-xO₃ or BZT) ceramics which are the solid solutions of barium titanate and barium zirconate. This material has a phase diagram containing compositions or the Zr:Ti ratios that can provoke the elecromechanical properties, including the piezoelectric response which is a key to miniature the devices at the nanoscale dimension. The most important factor is to have a homogeneous constituent with uniform distribution to facilitate the functions of the nano-and microelectronic devices. We choose the sol-gel method for producing the nanometer-size powders of the BZT. The crystalline structure of the BZT strongly depends on the Zr:Ti ratio, however, they are perovskite and molar for the zirconium content below 20 mol%. The best piezoelectric coefficient of 130 pC/N is found from the BZT ceramic with the Zr:Ti ratio of 5:95.