Structure of Magnesium Doped Yttrium Barium Zirconate as a Novel Compound

Abstract

The magnesium doped yttrium barium zirconate, YBa₂Zr_3 – xMg_xO_9.5 – δ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) has been prepared by the standard solid-state reaction method and the room temperature X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), particle size analysis (PSA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) have been investigated for phase purity, structural and thermal characterizations. The XRD data of the materials have been indexed with the winXpow software and Rietveld refinements have been done by FullProf suite programarend is found to be double phase of cubic perovskite and a small amount of cubic fluorite. The microstructural parameters such as size, stress, strain, crystal energy are obtained from XRD line broadening data using different models and found that the cubic perovskite phase contributed a large part to the solid solution shows a larger crystallite size of ~212 nm (±13 nm) than its fluorite counterpart which is found to be ~132 nm (±1 nm). The TEM analyses confirm the presence of both phases. The TGA scans in nitrogen environment exhibits stability up to 1000°C. The sizes of the particles from 9 to 13 μm. Scanning electron microscope images reveals that the materials sintered at 1450°C are porous.