Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-15Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:43:10Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 jesus_mm_dr_araiq.pdf: 3120238 bytes, checksum: 8758936a6c6913fe23da8e0dd94e4296 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Titanato de cálcio possui estrutura tipo perovisquita com interessantes propriedades elétricas para aplicações tecnológicas, como termistores, capacitores multicamadas e memória DRAM. Para a indústria cerâmica e eletrônica, pesquisas com perovisquita tem aumentado sua importância devido a propriedade fotoluminescente observada nesses materiais. Neste trabalho, o titanato de cálcio puro e dopado com escândio nas concentrações 0,25;0,5 e 1,0% mol foi sintetizada pelo método dos precursores poliméricos. Este método é baseado na quelação dos cátions por ácido cítrico em etileno glicol. Os pós foram calcinados variando a temperatura de 350º a 850°C. Os resultados da análise térmica mostraram que a obtenção de pós amorfos com baixo teor de matéria orgânica está diretamente relacionado à ordem estrutural da estrutura perovisquita. Os pós amorfos e cristalinos puro e dopado com Sc foram caracterizados por termogravimétria e pela técnica da calorimetria exploratória diferencial (TG/DSC), espectroscopia de infra vermelho (IR), Raman, espectroscopia UV-visível, microscopia eletrônica de transmissão (TEM), fotoluminescência e difração de raio X, onde foi usado refinamento pelo Método de Rietveld. A adição de Sc causou um decréscimo da cela unitária e causou interferência na distribuição dos cátions nos sítios octaédricos formando vacâncias de cálcio e conseqüentemente aumentando a desordem. Medidas de fotoluminescência desses materiais mostraram uma intensa banda larga atribuída à desordem do CT e CTSc. / Calcium titanate presents perovskite type structure with interesting electrical properties for technological applications, such as thermisters, multilayer capacitors and DRAM memories. For the ceramic and electronic industries, research with perovskite has increased in importance due to the photoluminescent properties observed in these materials. In this work pure and Sc doped CaTiO3 at concentrations of 0.25, 0.5 and 1% molar was synthesized through the method of polymeric precursors . This method is based on the chelation of cations through citric acid in ethylene glycol solvent. The materials were calcined at temperatures varying from 350 to 850°C. The experimental results obtained through thermal analysis showed that the condition to obtaining amorphous powder with low content of organic matter is directly related to structural order of perovskite structure. The crystalline and amorphous pure and Sc doped powder was characterized through termogravimetric and diferential scaning calorimetry technique (TG/DSC), infrared spectroscopy (IR), Raman, UVvisible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoluminescence and x-ray diffraction were used, refinement through method of Rietveld. Addition of Sc caused a decrease in the unitary cell and caused interference in the distribution of the cations in octahedral sites forming calcium vacancies, and consequently increasing the disorder. The Photoluminescent s of these materials showed an intense large band, attributed to the disorder of CT e CTSc.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Andrew Rys / Since its discovery in the 1940's, barium titanate has become one of the more popular dielectric materials for use in discrete capacitors due to its high relative permittivity. Recently, consumer electronics have decreased in size, driving the need for smaller electronic components. To fill this need, researchers have created polycrystalline barium titanate with individual grains in the nanometer scale. With this decrease in size, many problems arise. This paper will outline the effects on the dielectric properties due to shrinking the individual grains, as well as discuss techniques for dielectric measurement of this material.

Dans le contexte actuel, les ressources en énergie fossiles diminuent et deviennent de plus en plus couteuses, se pose aussi le problème de l’environnement. Dans ce cadre, les piles à combustible à oxydes solides (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell en anglais, SOFC) sont une source d’énergie propre et alternative très prometteuse. Utilisé de façon réversible, ce système peut également permettre le stockage de l’électricité produite de façon intermittente via l’électrolyse de l’eau. Néanmoins, plusieurs verrous technologiques restent encore à lever en matière de performances et de durabilité des matériaux actuellement utilisés, notamment pour ce qui concernent les matériaux d’électrode. Dans ce travail de thèse de doctorat, notre contribution a porté sur deux matériaux de cathode de SOFC, Ba2Co9O14 et Ca3Co4O9+δ, et des composés dérivés de La4Ti2O10 pouvant présenter un intérêt comme matériau d’anode. Nous nous sommes intéressés plus particulièrement à la compréhension des mécanismes physico-chimiques intervenant au sein de ces matériaux en faisant appel à la spectroscopie d’impédance. Pour les cobaltites, cette étude a permis de mettre en évidence les paramètres limitants les performances électrochimiques. Elle aidera à l’optimisation de futures cellules complètes plus performantes. Pour les phases dérivées de La4Ti2O10, une étude par diffusion des neutrons a permis de confirmer les mécanismes de diffusion de l’oxygène au sein de ces matériaux. Leurs conductivités et propriétés catalytiques restent néanmoins insuffisantes pour pouvoir espérer les utiliser comme matériau d’anode, au contraire d’autres titanates de lanthane de structure perovskite lamellaire. / In the current context, fossil energy resources decrease and become more expensive, in addition to environmental concern. In this frame, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are a promising green alternative energy source. Reversibly used, this system can also allow storage of electricity produced intermittently through the electrolysis of water. However, several bottlenecks still remain in terms of performances and stability of materials currently used to improve their lifetime and decrease their working temperature. In this doctoral thesis, our contribution focused on two cathode materials for SOFCs, Ba2Co9O14 and Ca3Co4O9+δ, and compounds derived from La4Ti2O10 which may be relevant as anode material. Our study mainly focused on the understanding of the physicochemical mechanisms involved in these materials by using impedance spectroscopy. For cobaltites, this study has led to the identification of the limiting parameters and will help the future optimization of complete stacks with better performances. For the La4Ti2O10 derived phases with the cuspidine structure, a neutron scattering study confirmed the oxygen diffusion mechanisms in these materials. However, their conductivity and catalytic properties remain insufficient to hope to use these compounds as SOFC’s anode, unlike other lanthanum titanates which display a layered perovskite structure.

Ferroelectric random access memories (FRAM) are considered as future memories due to high speed, low cost, low power, excellent radiation hardness, nonvolatility, and good compatibility with the existing integrated circuit (IC) technology. The non-volatile FRAM devices are divided into two categories, based on reading technique: destructive readout (DRO) FRAM and non-destructive readout (NDRO) FRAM. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is recently considered as one of the most promising materials for DRO FRAM devices due to its excellent ferroelectric properties. There are remarkable advances in the applications of PZT thin films, but the direct integration into high density CMOS devices is restricted by high processing temperatures. Hence, it is desirable to lower processing temperature and develop novel high temperature electrode-barrier layers for achieving high density DRO FRAM devices. The NDRO FRAM devices have been developed mainly using metal-ferroelectric-semiconductor (MFS) and metal-ferroelectric-metal-insulator-semiconductor (MFMIS) structure. This devices use the remanent polarization of ferroelectric films to control the surface conductivity of a silicon substrate. The problem of the NDRO FRAM is that the actual electric field applied to ferroelectric films is very small compared to the external electric field, because of the large depolarization field in the MFS structure and the high capacitance ratio of ferroelectric capacitor and SiO2 capacitor in series in the MFMIS structure. Since the typical ferroelectric films show very high dielectric constant over 400, it is desired to develop ferroelectric films with low dielectric constant and low coercive electric field. This research is primarily focused on developing low temperature processing and high temperature electrode-barrier layers for DRO FRAM application, and exploiting novel ferroelectric materials for NDRO FRAM application. The low temperature processing was achieved by a novel sol-gel processing, which takes advantage of in-situ electrode template layer, rapid heating-treatment without pyrolysis step, and molecularly modified precursors. The PZT films with various composition were also investigated as a function of Ti content. In order to study the integration issues for these PZT films, a substrate was constructed as Pt/TiN/TiSi₂/poly-Si, which represents a scheme of capacitor in high density DRO FRAM devices. The ferroelectric films were incorporated into the substrate, and their ferroelectric properties were investigated as a function of annealing temperature. Excellent ferroelectric properties were observed for the thin films processed at a low temperature of 500 °C as contacting between top Pt and bottom polysilicon. The other approach we have taken to overcome the integration problems in high density DRO FRAM devices is to develop high temperature electrode barrier layers. In this research, Pt/IrO2/Ir hybrid layers were prepared on poly-Si substrate as high temperature electrode-barriers. The PZT films fabricated on the Pt/IrO₂/Ir/poly-Si substrates exhibited good ferroelectric properties and outstanding fatigue properties after high temperature processing. It was observed from Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) profiles that the hybrid oxide electrode minimized fatigue problem by reducing the oxygen vacancies entrapment at the electrode/ferroelectric interfaces. This results indicated that Pt/IrO₂/Ir high temperature electrode-barrier layers promise to solve major problems of PZT integration into high density DRO memory devices. For the NDRO FRAM devices, Sr₂Nb₂O₇ and La₂Ti₂O₇ thin films were prepared on Pt-coated silicon, Si(100), and Pt/IrO₂/SiO₂/Si substrates by metalorganic deposition (MOD) technique. The Sr₂Nb₂O₇ and La₂Ti₂O₇ thin films showed the dielectric constant values of 48 and 46, respectively. However, no ferroelectricity was observed at room temperature, which might be attributed to extremely small grains. Extensive studies on preparation and properties of Sr₂(Ta_1-xNb_x)O₇ (STN) both in bulk and thin film form were carried out as a function of composition. The STN films exhibited small dielectric constant of around 46, irrespective of the composition. / Ph. D.

We developed a model to investigate the dielectric properties of the BaTiO₃ − Bi(Zn₁/₂Ti₁/₂)O₃ (BT-BZT) solid solution, which is a relaxor ferroelectric and exhibits long range disorder. The model uses ab initio methods to determine all polarization states for every atomic configuration of 2 x 2 x 2 supercells of BT-BZT. Each supercell is placed on a lattice with an Ising-like interaction between neighboring cell polarizations. This method allows us to consider long range disorder, which is not possible with ab initio methods alone, and is required to properly understand relaxor ferroelectric materials. We analyze the Monte Carlo data for a single lattice configuration using the multiple histogram method, and develop a modified histogram technique to combine data from multiple lattice configurations. Our calculated values of dielectric constant, specific heat, and polarization agree reasonably well with experiment. / Graduation date: 2012

Ferroelectric materials have received lots of attention thanks to their intriguing properties such as the piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects, as well as the large dielectric constants and the spontaneous polarization which can potentially be used for information storage. In particular, perovskite crystal has a very simple unit cell structure yet a very rich phase transition diagram, which makes it one of the most intensively studied ferroelectric materials. In this dissertation, we use effective Hamiltonian, a first-principles-based computational technique to study the finite-temperature properties of ferroelectric perovskites. We studied temperature-graded (BaxSr1-x )TiO3 (BST) bulk alloys as well as the dynamics of nanodomain walls (nanowalls) in Pb(ZrxTi1-x )O3 (PZT) ultra-thin films under the driving force of an AC field. Our computations suggest that, for the temperature-graded BST, the polarization responds to the temperature gradient (TG), with the "up" and "down" offset observed in polarization components along the direction of TG, in agreement with the findings from experiments. For the nanowalls in PZT, the dynamics can be described by the damped-harmonic-oscillator model, and we observed a size-driven transition from resonance to relaxational dynamics at a critical thickness of 7.2 nm. The transition originates from the change in the effective mass of a nanowall as a film thickness increases. Some of the findings may find potential applications in various devices, such as thermal sensors, energy converters, or novel memory units.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2002Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:12:29Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 lazaro_sr_me_araiq.pdf: 2071038 bytes, checksum: a6fdd300dddf4fe7933a6f1503d5a2a5 (MD5) / A presente dissertação baseou-se tanto em abordagens experimentais quanto teóricas no estudo da síntese e caracterização do titanato de cálcio – CaTiO3. Utilizou-se uma variação do método dos Precursores Poliméricos, o qual é baseado na quelação de cátions formadores (Ti e Nb) e modificadores (Ca, Sr e Pb) de rede, para obtenção do titanatos em geral. A partir dessas soluções obteve-se seus respectivos espectros de Ressonância Magnética Nuclear de Carbono 13, os quais foram relacionados com cálculos mecânicos quânticos para proposição das geometrias moleculares, tendo por objetivo esclarecer as estruturas e interações dos complexos formados no processo. Com esse estudo observou-se a propriedade de memória química intrínseca ao método utilizado. Com a calcinação das soluções precursoras estudaram-se as fases amorfa e cristalina do titanato de cálcio. Utilizaram-se as técnicas de difração de raios-X e espectroscopia de UV-visível por refletância, para investigação do “gap” do material. Com a descoberta da propriedade fotoluminescente da fase amorfa do material à temperatura ambiente, até então desconhecida, foram realizados cálculos mecânicos quânticos. Tais cálculos auxiliaram na explicação do fenômeno por meio da distribuição dos níveis energéticos do material. Essa metodologia de relação entre os resultados experimentais e teóricos demonstrou-se muito rica, tanto pela diversificação quanto pela quantidade de informações. / The present M.Sc. thesis was base don both experimental and theoretical approaches for study of the synthesis and characterization of calcium titanate – CaTiO3. It was used a variation of the Polymeric Precursor Method, that is based on the chelation of both network former (Ti, Nb) and network modifier cations, in order to obtain titanates in general. The solutions therefore prepared had their Carbon 13 NMR spectra obtained. These spectra, together with quantum mechanic calculations supported the proposition of the molecular geometries, with the goal of making clear the structures and interactions of the complexes formed in the process. In this study it was noticed that the chemical memory is intrinsic to this method. The amorphous and crystalline phases of calcium titanate, formed upon the heat treatment of the precursor citrates were studied. The technique of X-ray diffraction was used to phase determination and UV-visible reflectance spectroscopy was employed, in order to investigate the band gap of the material. The recent discovery of room temperature photoluminescence in the amorphous phase of this material encouraged the accomplishment of quantum mechanic calculations. These calculations helped to explain the phenomenon by means of the distribution of the energy levels of the material. Our methodology of interconnection between the experimental and theoretical results was shown to be very fruitful, in terms of both diversification and amount of information.

Orientador: Elson Longo da Silva / Banca: Sidney José Lima Ribeiro / Banca: Júlio Ricardo Sambrano / Resumo: A presente dissertação baseou-se tanto em abordagens experimentais quanto teóricas no estudo da síntese e caracterização do titanato de cálcio - CaTiO3. Utilizou-se uma variação do método dos Precursores Poliméricos, o qual é baseado na quelação de cátions formadores (Ti e Nb) e modificadores (Ca, Sr e Pb) de rede, para obtenção do titanatos em geral. A partir dessas soluções obteve-se seus respectivos espectros de Ressonância Magnética Nuclear de Carbono 13, os quais foram relacionados com cálculos mecânicos quânticos para proposição das geometrias moleculares, tendo por objetivo esclarecer as estruturas e interações dos complexos formados no processo. Com esse estudo observou-se a propriedade de memória química intrínseca ao método utilizado. Com a calcinação das soluções precursoras estudaram-se as fases amorfa e cristalina do titanato de cálcio. Utilizaram-se as técnicas de difração de raios-X e espectroscopia de UV-visível por refletância, para investigação do "gap" do material. Com a descoberta da propriedade fotoluminescente da fase amorfa do material à temperatura ambiente, até então desconhecida, foram realizados cálculos mecânicos quânticos. Tais cálculos auxiliaram na explicação do fenômeno por meio da distribuição dos níveis energéticos do material. Essa metodologia de relação entre os resultados experimentais e teóricos demonstrou-se muito rica, tanto pela diversificação quanto pela quantidade de informações. / Abstract: The present M.Sc. thesis was base don both experimental and theoretical approaches for study of the synthesis and characterization of calcium titanate - CaTiO3. It was used a variation of the Polymeric Precursor Method, that is based on the chelation of both network former (Ti, Nb) and network modifier cations, in order to obtain titanates in general. The solutions therefore prepared had their Carbon 13 NMR spectra obtained. These spectra, together with quantum mechanic calculations supported the proposition of the molecular geometries, with the goal of making clear the structures and interactions of the complexes formed in the process. In this study it was noticed that the chemical memory is intrinsic to this method. The amorphous and crystalline phases of calcium titanate, formed upon the heat treatment of the precursor citrates were studied. The technique of X-ray diffraction was used to phase determination and UV-visible reflectance spectroscopy was employed, in order to investigate the band gap of the material. The recent discovery of room temperature photoluminescence in the amorphous phase of this material encouraged the accomplishment of quantum mechanic calculations. These calculations helped to explain the phenomenon by means of the distribution of the energy levels of the material. Our methodology of interconnection between the experimental and theoretical results was shown to be very fruitful, in terms of both diversification and amount of information. / Mestre

Ferroelectric materials, especially the polycrystalline ceramics, are very promising material for a variety of applications such as high permittivity dielectrics, ferroelectric memories, piezoelectric sensors, piezoelectric/electrostrictive transducers, electrooptic devices and PTC thermistors. Among the ferroelectric based piezoelectric ceramics the lead–zirconate-titanate Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3 (PZT) have dominated transducer and actuator market due to its excellent piezoelectric and dielectric properties, high electromechanical coupling, large piezoelectric anisotropy, ease of processing and low cost. However, the toxicity of lead based compounds has raised serious environmental concerns and therefore has compelled the researchers to look for new lead free alternatives with good piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties. (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3 (NBT) and its solid solution is one of the leading lead free piezoceramic ceramics due to their interesting ferroelectric, piezoelectric, electromechanical and dielectric property. The parent compound NBT is a ferroelectric with a moderately high Curie temperature (~250 oC), large ferroelectric polarization (~40µC/cm2) polarization, promising piezoelectric properties with 0.08% strain and longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient (d33) ~ 80 pC/N. X-ray and neutron diffraction studies in the past have shown that NBT exhibits rhombohedral (R3c) at room temperature. Neutron diffraction studies have suggested that NBT undergo a gradual rhombohedral to tetragonal (P4bm) transformation in a temperature region 200-320 ºC. Though the structure and phase transition behavior of NBT has been extensively investigated for over six decades now, this subject has again become debatable in recent few years, with some group reporting formation of orthorhombic phase above room temperature and another group suggesting monoclinic distortion at room temperature using high resolution x-ray diffraction technique. Interestingly the intermediate orthorhombic instability, reported by electron diffraction studies, has never been captured by neutron diffraction method though neutron diffraction is an equally powerful tool for studying (oxygen) octahedral tilts in perovskites. Needless to mention, the understanding of the subtle structural distortions have great significance with regard to the determination of the structure-piezoelectric property correlations in NBT based piezoceramics. The present thesis deals with such subtle structural issues in great detail. The systems investigated in the thesis are Ca and Ba modified NBT. While the Ca modified system was chosen to understand the subtle orthorhombic instability that has been reported above room temperature (only) by detailed electron diffraction work, Ba-modified NBT is the most investigated among the NBT-derived piezoelectric material systems and this thesis attempts to address some of the very complex nature of the structure-piezoelectric property correlation of this system. The first chapter of the thesis provides a brief introduction to the field of ferroelectrics, perovskite structure and their phase transition. A brief exposure to the conventional lead based relaxor ferroelectric and piezoelectric material is provided. A detailed overview of the existing knowledge related to room temperature structure of NBT and its phase transition studies with temperature has been discussed in the later part of this chapter. The second chapter includes various the experimental techniques that have been employed to synthesis and characterize the specimens under investigation. The third chapter deals with the phase transition behaviour of Ca modified NBT as a function of composition and temperature in the dilute concentration region. This work was carried out with the view to obtain a better understanding and compliment the intrinsic high temperature orthorhombic instability in NBT reported by electron diffraction technique. Interestingly, inspite of the fact that neutron diffraction method is a very sensitive tool for investigating subtle change in the nature of octahedral tilt in oxide perovskites, the intermediate orthorhombic distortion proposed by the electron diffraction studies has so far never been captured in any of the neutron diffraction studies. In this work we have verified the genuineness of the intrinsic instability with regard to the non-polar orthorhombic structure using neutron powder diffraction by adopting a special strategy which helped in capturing the characteristic signatures (the superlattice reflections) of the orthorhombic phase in the neutron powder diffraction patterns. It was found that small fraction of Ca-substitution (8-10 mol %) was good enough to amplify the magnitude of the orthorhombic (Pbnm) distortion, without altering the sequence of the structural evolution with temperature of the parent compound (NBT) itself, and stabilizing it at the global length scale at lower temperatures than pure NBT. This chapter presents the innovative approach that was used to extract reliable information about the very complex phase transition behaviour, involving coexistence of the various similar looking but crystallographically different phases in different temperature regimes by Rietveld analysis of temperature dependent neutron powder diffraction pattern in conjunction with temperature dependent dielectric and ferroelectric characterization of the specimens. The detailed study revealed the following sequence of structural evolution with temperature: Cc+Pbnm →Pbnm + P4/mbm → P4/mbm →Pm3 m. The fourth chapter gives a detail account of the structure-property correlations and the phase transition behaviour of (1-x)(Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3 – (x)BaTiO3 (0≤x≤0.10), the most important solid solution series with NBT as reported in the literature. The phase transformation behaviour of this system has been investigated as a function of composition (0<x≤0.10), temperature, electric field and mechanical-impact by Raman scattering, ferroelectric, piezoelectric measurements, x-ray and neutron powder diffraction methods. The structure of the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) compositions of this system, which is interesting from the piezoelectric property point of view, has been under controversy for long. While some groups report the structure to be pseudocubic, other groups suggest it to be combination of rhombohedral and tetragonal. A perusal of the literature suggests that the reported nature and composition range of MPB is dependent on the method of synthesis and characterization technique used. In the present study, crystal structure of the NBT-BT solid solution has been investigated at the close interval near the MPB (0.05≤x≤0.10). Though x-ray diffraction study revealed three distinct composition ranges characterizing different structural features in the equilibrium state at room temperature: (i) monoclinic (Cc) + rhombohedral (R3c) for 0≤x≤0.05, (ii) “cubic-like” for 0.06≤x≤0.0675 and (iii) MPB like for 0.07≤x<0.10, Raman and neutron powder diffraction studies revealed identical symmetry for the cubic like and the MPB compositions. Both the cubic like compositions and the MPB compositions exhibit comparatively large d33. In the later part of this chapter this apparent contradiction is resolved by the fact that the cubic like structure transforms irreversibly to MPB after electric poling, a procedure which involves applying high dc electric field (well above the coercive field) to the pellet before carrying out the piezoelectric measurements. The effect of electrical field and mechanical impact has been studied for all the three different composition range, and it was found that electric field and mechanical impact both led to irreversible phase transformation in the same direction, though the transformation with mechanical impact remains incomplete in comparison to electric field. The most pronounced effect was observed for the cubic like compositions 0.06≤x≤0.0675 – they undergo phase separation to rhombohedral and tetragonal phases by electrical and mechanical perturbations. In the non-perturbed state the cubic-like critical compositions mimics features of relaxor ferroelectrics and extremely short coherence length (~ 40-50 Å) of the out-of-phase octahedral tilts. In the poled state this coherence length grows considerably and the system behaves like a normal ferroelectric. This confirmed a strong coupling between the lattice, octahedral tilts and polarization degrees of freedom. Neutron diffraction study of compositions exhibiting cubic-like and the MPB like revealed that the traditional P4bm tetragonal structure model fails to account for the intensity of the superlattice reflections. Thus the tetragonal structure stabilized above room temperature in pure NBT is different from the tetragonal phase observed at room temperature in the NBT-BT system. The results of the effect of mechanical impact and electric field has also been reported in this chapter for the critical composition exhibiting MPB (x=0.07). A detailed structural analysis of the precritical compositions, x≤0.05, revealed coexistence of ferroelectric phases (Cc+R3c) in equilibrium state (annealed specimens). This transforms to single phase (R3c) state after poling. Thus though the precritical (x≤0.05) and critical compositions (0.06≤x<0.10) of NBT-BT exhibits coexistence of ferroelectric phases in the equilibrium state, the fact that the electric poling makes the specimen single phase, R3c, after poling for the precritical compositions and retains the two phase nature of the critical compositions makes the critical compositions exhibit considerably higher piezoelectric response than the precritical compositions. Chapter five is dedicated to phase transition behaviour of the post critical compositions of (1-x)(Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3–(x)BaTiO3 (0.16≤x≤1) using temperature dependent XRD, dielectric and ferroelectric studies. Though structurally the entire composition range is tetragonal, several notable features were revealed during detailed examination of the structural and dielectric behaviour. This study is also important from the view point that pure BT is a major component of multilayer ceramic capacitors and that an increase in the Curie point would be a welcome step for better temperature stability of the device. NBT does this. The transition temperature increases from 120 ºC for pure BT to 275 ºC for x=0.30 along with simultaneous increase in c/a ratio from 1.009 (pure BT) to 1.02 (x=0.30). Detailed analysis of temperature and frequency dependent dielectric data revealed deviation from Curie-Weiss and suggests a gradual transformation to relaxor-ferroelectric state as the NBT concentration increases in BT. The measure of frequency dispersion ‘γ’ parameter was determined from modified Curie-Weiss law for various compositions in the system. The ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties have also been investigated in detail for this composition range and an attempt has been made to correlate the composition variation of these properties with their structural parameters. This chapter shows a systematic correlation between all physical quantities such as Curie point, piezoelectric coefficient, polarization and tetragonality as a function of composition.

Les problèmes de pollution chimique de l'eau sont devenus une source de préoccupation importante et un enjeu prioritaire pour les industriels du nucléaire. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est d'étudier certains minéraux échangeurs ioniques utilisables pour une décontamination liquide en strontium (radioisotope toxique pour l'homme). Mais également de relier les propriétés physico-chimiques de ces matériaux avec leurs propriétés de rétention du radioisotope. Ce mémoire présente donc la synthèse de deux matériaux choisis pour leurs propriétés de sorption spécifique et quantitative du strontium : le nonatitanate de sodium et la zéolithe A. Une seconde partie du travail est dédiée à l'étude des capacités d'échange spécifique de ces matériaux vis-à-vis du strontium en présence d'autres éléments comme le sodium et le calcium. Le nonatitanate de sodium et la zéolithe A ont également été testés sur des effluents réels. Les performances d'un monolithe de zéolithe A ont été évaluées pour un procédé de traitement en colonne. Ce matériau semble prometteur pour la décontamination d'effluents car il permet de cumuler les avantages de la poudre de zéolithe A avec ceux d'un transfert de matière sans perte de charge du solide. / The problems of chemical pollution of water have become a major concern and a priority for the nuclear industry.The aim of this work is to study some ion exchangers used for the removal of strontium ions because 90Sr is one of a major pollutant in nuclear liquid wastes. This study allows linking the physical and chemical properties of these materials and their sorption properties. This work presents therefore the synthesis of two materials - sodium nonatitanate and zeolite A - selected for their specific sorption properties of strontium: A second part of this work is dedicated to the study of specific exchange capacities of these materials for the strontium in presence of other elements such as sodium and calcium. Batch experiments were performed and kinetic and ion exchange models have been applied to understand the selectivity of the materials for strontium removal. Sodium nonatitanate and zeolite A are also studied in actual effluents.Monoliths of zeolite A have been also tested in dynamic ion exchange process. This material is promising for the treatment of radioactive effluents in continuous flow because it joins the sorption properties of the zeolite powder with the advantage of a solid with a macroporous network.