(184e) Synthesis and Characterization of Nanoscale Europium Barium Titanate Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3

Rare earth metal titanates with the perovskite structure are candidate materials for multiferroics and magnetodielectrics. They can present an interesting range of properties because the combination of electronic ground states of several elements in one compound can potentially include ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity (and even superconductivity), which are used for novel applications such as magnetic field sensors and advanced data storage technology concepts. Europium Barium Titanate (Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3) has the potential to comprise both ferroelectric (BaTiO3 is a typical ferroelectric material) and magnetic properties (the existence of localized 4f moments with S=7/2 on the Eu2+ site). EuxBa1−xTiO3 is also a very promising material for the electron dipole moment (EDM) search. Unlike other usual solid states synthesis methods which require high temperature and high pressure, we were able to synthesize Europium Barium Titanate compounds using a chemical solution processing method that we call gel-collection. Gel-collection is a simple, green and high yield process based on the sol-gel transformation of metal alkoxides in alcohol solvents, controlled by stoichiometric amounts of water, that produces highly crystalline nanostructured morphologies. A series of perovskite Europium Barium Titanate (EBTO) nanomaterials (< 50 nm) were prepared and found to be stable in air for up to several months. Depending on the processing conditions of the initial gel, compounds with near identical crystal structures were obtained that exhibited different physical properties, in particular conductivity and permittivity, as a function of electronic structure and the unique behavior of europium. LCR measurements of EBTO pellets showed stable effective permittivities (~24) and low dissipation (<0.01) over 100 Hz-1 MHz range, while SQUID magnetometry confirms increasing magnetic susceptibility with increasing europium content.