Preparation and electrorheological characteristic of Y-doped BaTiO3 suspension under dc electric field

The electrorheological (ER) effects of BaTiO₃ or other perovskite materials with high dielectric constant are presumed to be large. However, their weak ER activity is very puzzling. In this study, we choose cubic BaTiO₃ and first achieve its ER enhancement under dc electric field by modifying its intrinsic structure with doping rare earth Y ions, which are synthesized by means of sol-gel technique. DSC-TG, FT-IR, XRD, ICP and XPS techniques are used to characterize thermal, structure and component change of materials. It is demonstrated that Y³⁺ substitutes for Ba²⁺, which causes lattice-distorting defects. Rheological experiments show that Y-doped BaTiO₃ suspension has notable ER effect and clear fibrillation structure under dc electric field, while the pure cubic BaTiO₃ suspension suffers from electrophoretic effects and its ER effect is very weak. The ER effect of typical Y-doped BaTiO₃ ER suspension is ten times that of pure BaTiO₃ ER suspension. Based on the electrical measurements, the enhancement of ER activity of BaTiO₃ may be attributed to the increase of conductivity due to Y-doping. The enhancement in ER activity of cubic BaTiO₃ under dc electric field by doping rare earth Y ions is helpful to further understand the perovskite-based ER materials with high dielectric constant but low ER activity.