Integrated Ferroelectrics, 62: 249–252, 2004 Copyright C  Taylor & Francis Inc. ISSN: 1058-4587 print/ 1607-8489 online DOI: 10.1080/10584580490458270 Sintering Behaviour of Ba x Sr 1-x TiO 3 KUMARAVINOTHAN SARMA, ∗ REHAN FAROOQ, KATY JARMAN, ROBERT C. PULLAR, PETER K. PETROV, and NEIL MCN. ALFORD Centre for Physical Electronics and Materials, Faculty of Engineering and Science, South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London, SE1 0AA (Received August 8, 2003; in final form January 5, 2004) This paper deals with the sintering behaviour of Barium Strontium Titanate (BST). Two methods were examined; method 1: BaTiO 3 + SrTiO 3 source powders; method 2: BaCO 3 + SrCO 3 + TiO 2 source powders. Commercially available 50 nm BST (x = 0.60) powder was used to investigate the effect of particle size on activation energy (E a ). Discs were sintered in a Netzsch 402C Dilatometer and E a for the powders were obtained by applying the Arrhenius expression. The results indicate powders made from both methods display a varying trend in E a over a range of x. The commercial powder yielded a higher E a compared with powder made from method 1. Keywords: Barium strontium titanate; sintering; activation energy INTRODUCTION In recent years BST has attracted much research attention as a promising material for electrically controllable microwave devices [1–3]. The main requirement in preparing BST is to obtain high density at low sintering temperatures. However it is problematic to sinter BST to a high-density [4]. A key issue therefore is to determine the activation energy of Ba x Sr 1-x TiO 3 , where x = 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75, made using both methods. The effects of particle size on E a will also be examined. In this context activation energy is the energy need to initiate a process, e.g. the energy needed for diffusion to occur during sintering. The E a is directly proportional to the required sintering temperature of a material [5]. ∗ E-mail: sarmak@sbu.ac.uk [509]/249