Studies of ferroelectric properties and leakage current behaviour of microwave sintered ferroelectric Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 ceramic

Single phase lead-free ferroelectric ceramic Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) is synthesized using sol-gel method and sintered using microwave sintering technique. The structural, microstructural, and electrical properties are investigated in detail. Rietveld refinement technique is used to analyse XRD pattern. SEM micrograph shows the densely packed micrometre sized grains. Ferroelectric hysteresis loops for unpoled and poled samples confirm its ferroelectric nature. The characteristic ferroelectric properties like remanent polarization and coercive field are found to be 84.8 mC/cm(2), 71.8 mC/cm(2) and 58.8 kV/cm, 58.6 kV/cm respectively for the unpoled and poled samples. The current versus voltage curve of the NBT follow the bulk-limited space-charge conduction mechanism