Technological advances results in the fact that quite a large number of electronic equipment interacts with its environment leading to the malfunction of the devices. This brings about the necessity of using proper electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbers/shields to avoid such interactions. In order to absorb EM waves in a large frequency band from several MHz to GHz, barium hexaferrite (BaHF) ceramics which are produced as textured ceramics as well as in multilayered form can be used. Textured ceramics are processed by tape casting using templated grain growth (TGG) phenomenon. In order to obtain textured ceramics, BaHF powders and platelets are required as raw materials in such a way that during sintering small size powders are directioned by large platelet surfaces. In this study, ferrite powders were synthesized by mixed oxide technique while the platelets were produced by both molten salt synthesis (MSS) and reactive templated grain growth (RTGG) methods. In the case of platelet synthesis by MSS, effects of calcination temperature and time as well as type and composition of the flux on the formation and morphology of platelets were investigated based on the XRD and SEM results. Studies have shown that KCl flux led to the formation of sharper platelet morphology, while NaCl resulted in more round shapes. However, extent of BaHF formation in the case of NaCl was higher when compared to KCl flux due to its higher wettability characteristic, and hence faster interaction with the raw materials. Since the aspect ratio of the synthesized platelets was only ca. 2-4, these platelets were not efficient for further TGG studies. Alternatively, BiFeO3 (BiF) particles having ~30-40 &mu / m average size were synthesized as seed crystals for the synthesis of BaHF platelets by RTGG method. After the washing of these platelets with dilute HNO3, pure BaHF powders and platelets were directed by tape casting which was followed by sintering using TGG phenomenon. Degree of achieved texturing in the processed ceramics was studied using Rietveld analysis, pole figure measurement and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD).

High dielectric constant materials are of technological importance as they lead to the miniaturization of the electronic devices. For instance, in the case of memory devices based on capacitive components, such as static and dynamic random access memories, the dielectric constant will ultimately decide the level of miniaturization. In this context, the observation of anomalously high dielectric constant (>10) in the double perovskite Sr2SbMnO6 (SSM) over wide frequency (100 Hz1 MHz) and (190373 K) temperature range has attracted a great deal of attention. However, unfortunately their dielectric losses were also high which limit their use for possible capacitor and related applications. The dielectric loss however was known to decrease with decreasing crystallite size in electroceramics. Therefore, the present work has been focused on the synthesis of nanocrystalline SSM powders by moltensalt route. The characterization of the ceramics fabricated from these powders for their microstructural and dielectric properties. A cubic phase of SSM powder was obtained by calcining the as synthesized powders at 900°C/10h by using sulphate flux. The crystallite size was ~ 60 nm. The activation energy associated with the particle growth was found to be 95 ± 5 kJmol-1 . The ceramic sintered at 1075°C/16h exhibited high dielectric constant (>10at 1 kHz) with low loss (0.72 at 1 kHz) at room temperature. The results are interpreted in terms of a twolayer model with conducting grains partitioned from each other by poorly conducting grain boundaries. Using this model, we attributed the two electrical responses in impedance and modulus formalisms to the grain and grain boundary effects, respectively, while the detected Debyelike relaxation and large dielectric constant were explained in terms of MaxwellWagner relaxation.