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Physical and Materials Chemistry Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune 411008, India
b
Center for Materials Characterization, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune 411008, India
c
Catalysis division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune 411008, India
Received 2 July 2006; accepted 10 August 2006
Available online 28 August 2006
Abstract
An aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide was used to coprecipitate cobalt and tantalum (or niobium) ions from their precursors as hydroxides
under basic conditions. This precipitate yielded CoTa2O6 (CT) or CoNb2O6 (CN) ceramics on calcining at 700 C, i.e. at a temperature much
lower than 900 C, reported for the formation of these powders prepared by the traditional solid state method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies
were employed to investigate phase contents and lattice parameters. The morphology of the synthesized powders was investigated by transmission
electron microscopy (TEM).
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Chemical synthesis; X-ray methods; Electronic materials; Oxides
1. Introduction
Niobate or tantalite based compounds (AB2O6), (A = Ba, Sr,
Mg and Zn, B = Nb and Ta) with either coulombite (orthorhombic) or trirutile (tetragonal) type structure have excellent electrooptic, pyroelectric, photo-refractive and microwave dielectric
applications[17]. Generally, these compounds were formed by
conventional ceramic processing at high temperatures. Since wet
chemical techniques have several advantages over traditional
solid state methods for the preparation of functional ceramics,
we have investigated low temperature synthesis of this Series of
compounds by wet chemical methods such as coprecipitation
and citrate gel methods [17]. As an extension of this work, we
report here a simple coprecipitation technique to produce
CoTa2O6 (CT) or CoNb2O6 (CN) powders using water soluble
salts. The compound, CoTa2O6 was investigated for its
interesting magnetic properties. It has a complex helical magnetic structure (antiferromagnetic) with Neel temperature of
4 K [811]. The compound CoNb2O6 is a quasi-one
dimensional Ising magnet with a Neel temperature of
2.95 K. The compound CN was also reported to be a potential
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 020 25902295; fax: +91 020 25893044.
E-mail address: r.venkat@ncl.res.in (V. Ravi).
0167-577X/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matlet.2006.08.024
microwave dielectric resonator material [1214]. The requirements of ceramic resonators used at microwave frequencies are
high dielectric constant, a high Q value (reciprocal of dielectric
loss) and a low temperature coefficient of resonant frequency.
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Fig. 3. (a) Ideal XRD pattern of CoNb2O6, (b) XRD of precipitate powders
calcined at 700 C.
4. Conclusions
A simple coprecipitation process was used for the preparation of ultrafine powders of CoTa2O6 and CoNb2O6 at 700 C.
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