Barium sodium niobate (BNN) glass-ceramics were successfully synthesized through a controlled crystallization method, using both a conventional and a microwave hybrid heating process. The dielectric properties of glass-ceramics devitrified at different temperatures and conditions were measured. It was found that the dielectric constant increased with higher crystallization temperature, from 750°C to 1000°C, and that growth of the crystalline phase above 900°C was essential to enhancing the relative permittivity and overall energy storage properties of the material. The highest energy storage was found for materials crystallized conventionally at 1000°C with a discharge energy density of 0.13 J/cm 3 at a maximum field of 100 kV/cm. Rapid microwave heating was found to not give significant enhancement in dielectric properties, and coarsening of the ferroelectric crystals was found to be critical for higher energy storage.
K E Y W O R D Sdielectric materials/properties, glass-ceramics, Weibull statistics
| INTRODUCTIONImprovement in capacitor technology is essential to meet the continued demand for more compact and reliable electrical power systems. In these systems, which require high-energy pulsed power, capacitors occupy a large volume; therefore capacitors with improved energy density are required for higher efficiency and compactness. 1 Traditional dielectric ceramics have low energy densities because of their defects and porosity. In order to achieve the goal of higher energy density, dielectric material with superior properties must be developed. These materials must be able to withstand high voltages, i.e., have high breakdown strength (E b ), have a high relative permittivity (e r ), and have high-energy efficiency through a charge/discharge cycle. Glass-ceramic materials are excellent candidates for such dielectric materials because of their potential for high energy density. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The melt casting used to obtain these materials is advantageous because cast amorphous bodies are normally pore free, and defects, such as pores, are detrimental to the breakdown strength of dielectric materials made through conventional solid-state processing. 11 The controlled crystallization of glass-ceramics also allows for tailoring of dielectric properties to help improve energy density. 10,12 Particularly, glass-ceramics that contain a crystalline ferroelectric phase have been studied due to their large dielectric constant, and based on the phase the materials exhibited an energy density ranging from 0.9 to 4.0 J/cm 3 , depending on the measuring method, and these energy densities can be orders of magnitude higher than porous conventional ceramic dielectrics made with the same phase. 4,5,10,13,14 A material with high values for both breakdown strength and permittivity would be desirable, unfortunately there is an inverse relationship between the E b and e r . 15 In glass ceramic systems the crystallization allows for the tailoring of these two variables, in order to achieve an optimized ene...