Fabrication of PbBi₄Ti₄O₁₅ microplatelets with different TiO₂ reactants

Platelet PbBi₄Ti₄O₁₅ (PBIT) microcrystals were fabricated by molten salt methods using different TiO₂ crystal forms (anatase and rutile) as the reactants. The results showed that the pure PBIT phase can be obtained by using rutile as the reactant, while the PBIT and TiO₂ phases coexisted when using anatase as the reactant. In comparison to anatase, the co-topping connection of rutile has better stability and accelerates the nucleation growth rate in a molten salt environment. Thus, PBIT microplatelets with the good crystallinity and plate-like morphology (aspect ratio of ~27) can be obtained when rutile is used as the reactant. Specifically, when using rutile as the reactant, a maximum d₃₃ ^∗ of ~153 pm/V can be obtained, which may potentially allow the fabrication of anisotropic perovskite templates for textured ceramics.