Development and characterization of titanium dioxide ceramic substrates with high dielectric permittivities.

Titanium dioxide substrates have been synthesized by means of solid-state reactions with sintering temperatures varying from 1150 ?C up to 1350 ?C. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) where employed to investigate the crystal structure, grain size and porosity of the resulting samples. The obtained ceramics are tetragonal (rutile phase) with average grain sizes varying from 2.94 ?m up to 5.81 ?m. The average grain size of samples increases with increasing temperature, while the porosity decreases. The effect of microstructure on the dielectric properties has been also studied. The reduction of porosity of samples significantly improves the dielectric parameters (relative dielectric permittivity and loss tangent) in comparison to those of commercial substrates, indicating that the obtained ceramic substrates could be useful in the miniaturization of telecommunication devices