Effect of starting materials on the structure of pure and Gd-doped BaTiO3 elaborated by the sol gel process

Undopcd and Gd-doped BaTiO3 samples, with the chemical formula BaGdxTi1-xO3-x/2 square x/2, x = 0.00; 0.01; 0.02; 0.03; 0.04 and 0.05, were synthesized using the sol gel process. During the procedure of preparation of these samples acetic acid and distilled water were used as solvents. All the powders corresponding to the two series of undoped and doped samples were calcined in air at different temperatures and their crystalline phase was checked using results from XRD and Raman analyses. Acetic acid was shown to provoke the formation of the stable pseudo cubic structure for the two series of samples at relatively low temperature of crystallization, while with the use of distilled water only (without acetic acid) the tetragonal phase prevailed. In this study, the effect of acetic acid is discussed and the latter seems to play a more or less important role in the formation of the structure of BT material.