Influence of particle size on high‐temperature sintering behavior of barium titanate: Densification and grain growth

Abstract A systematic investigation was conducted on the densification and grain growth of 170 and 260 nm tetragonal BaTiO 3 (BTO) powders during high‐temperature sintering. Densification and grain growth were uniquely analyzed using Python‐based computational modeling of dilatometer data and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The findings revealed that the 260 nm powder exhibited higher activation energies for both densification and grain growth. While a high‐fidelity master sintering curve (MSC) provided an excellent fit at lower temperatures ( R 2 > 0.99), its predictive capability diminished above 1200°C. This unprecedented observation was correlated with a decrease in the densification activation energy during the final sintering stage, which will be further discussed along with its link to prominent abnormal grain growth and the limitations of the MSC method.