Effect of grain size on the microwave dielectric characteristics of high-energy ball-milled zinc magnesium titanate ceramics

Using solid-state reaction route and high-energy ball milling technique Zn 1-xMg xTiO 3 (x = 0-0.5) compositions were synthesized. These ball milled samples were sintered at 1100°C for 2 h and microwave dielectric properties such as dielectric constant (ε'), quality factor (Q), and temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τ f) were studied. Significant improvement in quality factor of ∼ 65% was observed for x = 0.3. To understand the effect of sintering duration on the microwave dielectric properties, single phase Zn 0.7Mg 0.3TiO 3 samples were sintered at 1100°C for different durations from 2 to 20 h. The grain size increases with sintering duration and it influences to enhance the microwave dielectric properties and as a result, the quality factor further improved by three times. The dielectric constant and temperature coefficient of resonant frequency showed a slight improvement of ∼ 10%-15% with sintering duration. © 2012 The American Ceramic Society.