Nanoporous BaTiO₃ Crystallites

Morphology modification of ferroelectric materials at the nanoscale is an important aspect for further development of ferroelectrics. In this work, the synthesis of nanoporous barium titanate prepared under the assistance of Pluronic PE 10300 block copolymer is reported. Nanopores reside inside the BaTiO 3 crystallites that exhibit a specific BET surface area around 70 m 2 /g and nanopore volume fraction of 44.7%. X-ray diffraction of nanoporous BaTiO 3 indicates an average cubic structure while Raman spectra suggest local structural distortions of the lattice. With Landauer-Bruggeman effective medium approximation (LB-EMA), the dielectric constant (at 1 MHz) of nanoporous BaTiO 3 and solid BaTiO 3 (excluding all porosity) was estimated as 112 and 706, respectively, implying an effective way to manipulate the dielectric constant of materials by introducing nanopores.