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Direct Observation of Surface Potential Distribution in Insulation Resistance Degraded Acceptor-Doped BaTiO3 Multilayered Ceramic Capacitors

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Abstract

Insulation resistance (IR) degradation in BaTiO3 is a key issue for developing miniaturized multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) with high capacity. Despite rapid progress in BaTiO3-based MLCCs, the mechanism of IR degradation is still controversial. In this study, we demonstrate the Al doping effect on IR degradation behavior of BaTiO3 MLCCs by electrical measurements and scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM). As the Al doping concentration in BaTiO3 increases, IR degradation of MLCCs seems to be suppressed from electrical characterization results. However, SKPM results reveal that the conductive regions near the cathode become lager with Al doping after IR degradation. The formation of conducting regions is attributed to the migration of oxygen vacancies, which is the origin of IR degradation in BaTiO3, in dielectric layers. These results imply that acceptor doping in BaTiO3 solely cannot suppress the IR degradation in MLCC even though less asymmetric IR characteristics and IR degradation in MLCCs with higher Al doping concentration are observed from electrical characterization. Our results strongly suggest that observing the surface potential distribution in IR degraded dielectric layers using SKPM is an effective method to unravel the mechanism of IR degradation in MLCCs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. Ltd. and the Future Material Discovery (2016M3D1A1027666) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). Jun Min Suh acknowledges the Global Ph.D. Fellowship Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education (2015H1A2A1033701).

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  1. Kootak Hong and Tae-Hyung Lee have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Kootak Hong, Tae Hyung Lee, Jun Min Suh, Jaeho Choi & Ho Won Jang

  2. LCR R&D Group, LCR Division, Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. Ltd., Suwon, 16674, Republic of Korea

    Jae-Sung Park & Hyung-Soon Kwon

Authors
  1. Kootak Hong
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  2. Tae Hyung Lee
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Correspondence to Ho Won Jang.

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Hong, K., Lee, T.H., Suh, J.M. et al. Direct Observation of Surface Potential Distribution in Insulation Resistance Degraded Acceptor-Doped BaTiO3 Multilayered Ceramic Capacitors. Electron. Mater. Lett. 14, 629–635 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-018-0066-6

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