Investigation of the Structural and Electrophysical Properties of Barium Titanate Nanowires Produced by Hydrothermal Synthesis

The study of the structural and electrophysical properties of piezoelectrics is an important task for the creation of efficient piezoelectric nanogenerators designed to increase the autonomy of electronic devices. Barium titanate BaTiO3 is one of the promising materials for creating nanogenerators. Special sample preparation is required to study its properties. In this study, the results of studying the electrical properties of an individual BaTiO3 nanowire attached to the substrate surface using atomic force microscopy are presented. The BaTiO3 nanowires are formed by two-stage hydrothermal synthesis using titanium dioxide TiO2 as a precursor and sodium titanate as an intermediate compound. The surface morphology and phase composition of BaTiO3 nanowires are studied using a scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. A technique for fixing an individual BaTiO3 nanowire on a conductive substrate for studying the piezoelectric characteristics using an atomic force microscope (AFM) is presented. The BaTiO3 nanowires obtained have a tetragonal phase with the average length of ~14 μm and a diameter of 330 nm. The internal voltage of the nanowire is –0.45 V and the piezoelectric coefficient d33 is 5.2 pm/V. The resulting data confirm the possibility of applying BaTiO3 nanowires in nanogenerators and MEMS devices.