Low temperature sintering and microwave dielectric properties of Li2O-3ZnO-5TiO2 ceramics doped with V2O5

Novel low-temperature sinterable Li2O-3ZnO-5TiO(2) (LZT135) ceramics were prepared through a solid-state reaction method. XRD and EDS results showed that the LZT135 ceramics formed solid solutions with a crystal structure similar to Zn2Ti3O8. The addition of V2O5 could decrease the sintering temperature of LZT135 ceramics to about 900 A degrees C. When 0.6 wt% V2O5 was added, the LZT135 ceramics exhibited dielectric properties with relative permittivity (epsilon(r)) = 20.2, quality factor (Qxf) = 59,000 GHz, and temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (tau(f)) = - 30.2 ppm/A degrees C at a sintering temperature of 900 A degrees C. However, the tau(f) value was still too high for industrial applications; therefore, TiO2 was added to the LZT135 ceramics to further adjust the tau(f) value. Finally, near-zero tau(f) values and simultaneously desirable Qxf values were maintained for the low-temperature sintered LZT135 ceramics. The LZT135 ceramics doped with 0.6 wt% V2O5 and 6 wt% TiO2 exhibited reasonably good microwave dielectric properties with epsilon(r) = 24.3, Qxf = 51,700 GHz, and tau(f) = 0.3 ppm/A degrees C when sintered at 900 A degrees C, thus showing a great potential for low-temperature co-firing ceramic applications.