Evaluation of the effect of the stoichiometric ratio of Ca/Cu on the electrical and microstructural properties of the CaCu3Ti4O12 polycrystalline system

The structural, microstructural, non-ohmic and dielectric properties of perovskite-type CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) with Ca/Cu stoichiometries of 1/3, 1/1 and 3/1 are discussed. The 1/3 Ca/Cu ratio system presents very high dielectric permittivity (similar to 9000 at 10 kHz) and a low non-ohmic property (alpha = 9), whereas the 1/1 Ca/Cu ratio system shows the opposite effect, i.e. the dielectric permittivity decreases (2740 at 10 kHz) and the non-ohmic property increases (alpha = 42), indicating that these properties are not directly correlated. The results of this work reinforce the idea that the greatest contribution to the very high permittivity is caused by the presence of planar defects inside the CCTO grains, generating internal nanometric domains associated with stacking faults, according to the nanoscale barrier layer capacitance model proposed very recently in the literature [1]. The non-ohmic property is related to the presence and distribution of phases such as CaTiO3 (CTO) and CuO, segregated or precipitated at the grain boundary, which generate large numbers of electrically active interfaces.