Ferroelectric-to-paraelectric phase transition in barium titanate ceramics investigated by pyrocharge measurements

Temperature dependencies of the pyrocharge were recorded in view of investigating the ferroelectric-to-paraelectric phase transition in barium titanate ceramics with average grain sizes between 0.5 mu m and 20 mu m. The transition temperature decreased with decreasing the grain size. The relatively small shift of the Curie temperature detected in these pyrocharge experiments suggests that internal stresses are the main cause of the observed grain size effects.