Strong ferroelectric and luminescence properties of 0–3 type 0.8BaTiO ₃–0.2CaTiO ₃:Pr ³⁺ composite ceramics prepared by cold sintering process

0-3 type ferroelectric-phosphor composite ceramics cannot be prepared by the traditional solid-state sintering (SSS) method due to the strong chemical reaction between ferroelectrics and phosphors during high temperature sintering. Cold sintering process (CSP) may solve this issue by densifying the ceramics at an ultra-low sintering temperature. In this work, dense 0-3 type 0.8BaTiO₃-0.2CaTiO₃:Pr³⁺^{}(0.8BT-0.2CT:Pr³⁺) binary composite ceramics ^{}have been fabricated at an ultra-low temperature of 225 °C via CSP with the Ba(OH)₂·8H₂O hydrated flux. The effects of the Ba(OH)₂·8H₂O content, the sintering temperature and time on microstructure and densification of the ceramics are investigated. The density of the composite ceramic prepared by the optimized sintering parameters reaches 89%. Both the EDX and XRD confirm the existence of BT and CT:Pr³⁺phase in the prepared ceramics. A strong ferroelectric performance is obtained, and the luminescent properties of the CT:Pr³⁺ are preserved for the ceramics. Furthermore, the 0.8BT-0.2CT:Pr³⁺^{}composite ceramics prepared by CSP have stronger photoluminescence and photo-stimulated luminescence than the counterparts prepared by cold sintering assistance (CSA) and SSS methods. Therefore, CSP is a promising method to combine luminescent and ferroelectric properties into 0-3 type composite ceramics.