Synthesis of Tetragonal BaTiO₃ Nanoparticles in Methanol

BaTiO₃ (BT) is an essential material for many applications due to its dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties; nevertheless, it has been reported to possess a "critical size" in the nanoscale below which its outstanding properties are lost and the paraelectric cubic phase is stabilized at room temperature instead of the tetragonal phase. This value depends on multiple factors, mostly resulting from the synthesis route and conditions. Especially, internal stresses are known to promote the loss of tetragonality. Stresses are commonly present in water-containing synthesis routes because of the incorporation of hydroxyl groups into the oxygen sublattice of BaTiO₃. On the other hand, the use of an organic solvent instead of water as a reaction medium overcomes the mentioned problem. This work presents a one-pot water-free solvothermal treatment of a Ti(O-iPr)₄-Ba(OH)₂·8H₂O sol in methanol in the presence of small amounts of oleic acid, which allows the synthesis of spherical crystalline BT nanoparticles (from ~12 nm to ~30 nm in diameter) at temperatures as low as 100 °C with a cubic/tetragonal crystal structure confirmed by powder XRD, but predominantly tetragonal according to the Raman spectra. The retention of the tetragonal crystal structure is attributed to the lack of lattice hydroxyls (confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy) resulting from the use of an organic solvent (methanol) as reaction medium. To the best of the author's knowledge, this synthesis approach is the first report of tetragonal BT nanoparticles synthesized in methanol without the addition of extra water and without the need for a post-synthetic calcination step.