Nanocrystallization of ferroelectric strontium bismuth vanadium niobate in lithium tetraborate glasses

Transparent glass samples in (100-3x) (Li2O-2B2O3)-x(SrO-Bi2O3-0.7Nb2O5-0.3V2O5) (10 < or = x < or = 60, in molar ratio) system have been fabricated via conventional melt-quenching technique. The as-quenched samples, of all the compositions under study have been confirmed to be amorphous, by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) studies. Differential thermal analysis (DTA) was employed to confirm the glassy nature of the as-quenched glasses. Glass composites comprising vanadium doped strontium bismuth niobate nanocrystallites were obtained by controlled heat-treatment of the as-quenched glasses at 783 K for 6 h. Perovskite SrBi2(Nb0.7VO3)2O9-delta phase formation was found to be preceded by an intermediate fluorite phase which was established via XRD and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The dielectric constants (epsilonr) of the as-quenched glasses as well as the glass nanocrystal composites decreased with increase in frequency (100 Hz-10 kHz) at 300 K. Interestingly, the dielectric constant of the glass nanocrystal composite (heat-treated at 783 K/6 h) undergoes a maximum in the vicinity of the crystallization temperature of the host glass (Li2B4O7) reaching an anomalously high value (approximately 10(6)) at 800 K. Different dielectric mixture formulae were employed to rationalize the dielectric properties of the glass nanocrystal composite. The optical transmission properties of these glass nanocrystal composites were found to have strong compositional dependence.