Electrospinning of polycrystalline barium titanate nanofibers with controllable morphology and alignment

We report the fabrication of BaTiO3 nanofibers with controllable aspect ratio by electrospinning. Polycrystalline ribbon-like nanofibers similar to 200 nm in width and similar to 75 nm in thickness with grain sizes < 30 nm were prepared by electrospinning a solution that contained barium-titanium alkoxide and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone). Varying the concentration of alkoxide precursor resulted in the formation of BaTiO3 fibrils < 50 nm in diameter and fibers with ribbon-like morphology. Analysis by XRD and Raman scattering showed that amorphous BaTiO3 without residual polymer could be generated by calcination at 500 degrees C, while for fibers calcined at 700 degrees C, the polarized ferroelectric tetragonal phase was obtained. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.