Novel Pyroelectric Sensor Materials

Somnath Sengupta, Louise C. Sengupta, Jennifer Synowczynski, and David A. Rees

Abstract Ceramic compositions of barium strontium titanium oxide (BSTO) have been formulated for applications as pyroelectric sensor materials. The material has been fabricated in tape-cast and thin film forms. In general, the materials demonstrated high pyroelectric coefficients (p) accompanied with low dielectric constant and low dissipation factor. The compositions of the tape-cast and thin film specimens examined in this paper include a well-known commercially adopted Ba0.64Sr0.36TiO3 as well as a composition suggested in the literature, and a patented composition with the addition of MgO to BSTO is investigated. Doping BSTO with MgO has been shown to reduce the dielectric constant and loss tangent (over a very wide frequency range from 100 Hz--10 GHz) of the material and thereby increase the pyroelectric figure of merit. This article will discuss the processing, material characterization, pyroelectric coefficient, and pyroelectric figure-of-merit of the above mentioned BSTO compositions.

1998 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control 45:1444-1452

© 1998, by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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