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Chemical processing and characterization of barium zirconate nanopowders

L. CIONTEA1,* , T. RISTOIU1, R.-C. SUCIU1, T. PETRISOR JR.1, B. NEAMTU1, A. RUFOLONI2, G. CELENTANO2, T. PETRISOR1

Affiliation

  1. Technical University of Cluj- Napoca, Materials Science Laboratory, 15, C. Daicoviciu Street, Romania
  2. ENEA, Centro Ricerche Frascati, Via E. Fermi 45, Frascati, Italy

Abstract

Barium zirconate is the most attractive material to induce artificial pinning centers both in melt textured and YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) thin films, in order to increase the critical current density. This work reports on the preparation of a BaZrO3 (BZO) nanopowder by the chemical decomposition of an oxalate precursor starting from barium acetate and zirconium oxychloride. Ammonium oxalate was used as precipitating agent in order to finally obtain a pure phase. To study the kinetics of the reaction and the optimum synthesis temperature, the as-obtained precipitate was heat treated in air in the temperature range from 500 to 1200 °C. Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermal analysis (DTA/TG) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) and X-ray diffraction have shown that between 700-900°C the barium zirconate phase is partially formed, while between 1100-1200 °C a pure barium zirconate phase appears. The preliminary results obtained from the analysis of the X-ray peak profile and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have indicated a mean powder size of about 80 nm, adequate for artificial pinning centers in YBCO superconducting materials. The YBCO-5 mol. % BZO composite targets have been used for the deposition of high critical current density superconducting thin films by pulsed laser deposition (PLD)..

Keywords

FT-IR spectroscopy, Quadrupole mass spectrometry, Nanopowders, Pinning centers.

Submitted at: Nov. 15, 2006
Accepted at: March 15, 2007

Citation

L. CIONTEA, T. RISTOIU, R.-C. SUCIU, T. PETRISOR JR., B. NEAMTU, A. RUFOLONI, G. CELENTANO, T. PETRISOR, Chemical processing and characterization of barium zirconate nanopowders, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 9, Iss. 3, pp. 776-779 (2007)