Journal of Alloys and Compounds 791 (2019) 1033e1037

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom

Crystal structure, infrared reflectivity spectra and microwave

dielectric properties of CaAl2O4 ceramics with low permittivity
Bing Liu a, *, Cheng Chao Hu b, Yu Hui Huang c, Hadi Barzegar Bafrooei a, Kai Xin Song a, **
a
College of Electronic Information and Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China
b
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng 252059, China
c
Laboratory of Dielectric Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: CaAl2O4 ceramics with low permittivity have been prepared via a solid state ceramic route. X-ray
Received 21 February 2019 diffraction analysis and Rietveld refinement result demonstrated that CaAl2O4 ceramics belonged to the
Received in revised form monoclinic structure with P21/n space group. Dense ceramics with homogeneous microstructures were
26 March 2019
obtained when sintered at around 1450
C, wherein excellent microwave dielectric properties (εr ¼ 8.9,
Accepted 27 March 2019
Available online 30 March 2019
Qf ¼ 91,350 GHz, tf ¼ 55 ppm/
C) were achieved as well. Moreover, the infrared reflectivity spectra were
measured and fitted to understand their intrinsic dielectric properties. Considering the merits of easy
preparation, cheap raw materials and most importantly, the outstanding microwave dielectric properties,
Keywords:
CaAl2O4
CaAl2O4 ceramics are expected to be promising candidates for low loss microwave dielectric ceramics.
Aluminates © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Low permittivity
Microwave dielectric properties
Infrared reflectivity spectra

1. Introduction
The rapid development in wireless communication such as
Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent transport systems (ITS) and
ultra-high speed LAN has triggered all-pervasive advances in global
society [1,2]. Nowadays, wireless communication networks and
technologies are being pushed to their limits with the ever-
increasing expectations for better quality services. To satisfy the
emerging requirements, the carrier frequency of interest is
extended from ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Media) band to high-
band microwave and millimeter wave range, which has created
enormous development in microwave dielectrics [3,4].
During signal transmission, the delay time is proportional to the
square root of dielectric permittivity according to the formula td ¼
pffiffiffiffi
εr lc =c (where td, lc and c represent the signal delay time, trans-
mission distance and velocity of light, respectively) [4,5]. Thus,
materials with low permittivity (εr) can increase the signal propa-
gation velocity and decrease the cross coupling effect between the
substrates and the conductors, which are desirable for high speed
transmission. On the other hand, dielectrics with high quality factor
* Corresponding author.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: liubing@hdu.edu.cn (B. Liu), kxsong@hdu.edu.cn (K.X. Song).
(Q) minimize circuit insertion losses and create good frequency
selectivity, which are required for signal transmission with mini-
mum attenuation. Therefore, for millimeter wave and substrate
applications, there is a strong technology driving force for tem-
perature stable materials (tf ~ 0 ppm/
C) with low permittivity
(5 < εr < 20) and high quality factor (Qf > 50,000 GHz) [1,3].
Aluminates, feature as promising low permittivity microwave
dielectric systems, contain various kinds of [AleO] polyhedrons
connected through different forms, such as skeletons, rings and
chains [6,7]. According to the Clausius-Mossotti equation, their low
permittivity feature should be mainly derived from the low ionic
polarizability of the Al3þ (0.79 Å3) [8]. In the last few decades,
spinel MAl2O4 (M ¼ Mg, Zn) ceramics have been widely investi-
gated for millimeter wave applications. Sebastian et al. have re-
ported that MAl2O4 (M ¼ Mg, Zn) ceramics possess outstanding
microwave dielectric properties with εr ¼ 8.5e8.75,
Qf ¼ 56,300e68,900 GHz, tf ¼ 75 ~ 79 ppm/
C [9,10]. Further
modifications of the microwave dielectric properties have been
carried out by Lu et al., and a series of MAl2O4-based candidates are
reported [11,12]. For spinel MAl2O4, M ions are bonded with four
oxygen ions forming [MO4] tetrahedral, Al ions are coordinated by
six oxygen ions forming [AlO6] octahedral and connected with each
other through edge-sharing. On the other hand, the covalent
bonding mode between Al and O in MAl2O4 series could vary

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2019.03.369
0925-8388/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1034 B. Liu et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 791 (2019) 1033e1037

significantly according to radius of M-site ions. For example, recent

studies have reported that BaAl2O4/SrAl2O4 are constructed via
corner-shared [AlO4] tetrahedral owing to their much larger ionic
radius of Ba2þ (1.35 Å) and Sr2þ (1.18 Å) than those of Mg2þ (0.72 Å)
and Zn2þ (0.74 Å) [13]. However, the bulk BaAl2O4/SrAl2O4 ceramics
exhibit weak ferroelectricity and the microwave dielectric proper-
ties are undesirable for practical applications [14]. Yi. et al. have
reported the synthesis of CaAl2O4 ceramics in CaOeNd2O3eAl2O3
ternary system, while little attention has been paid on their crystal
structure and intrinsic dielectric properties [15]. Considering that
the radius of Ca2þ (1.0 Å) locates between Sr2þ and Zn2þ [13], the
crystal structure of CaAl2O4 and its microwave dielectric properties
are worth further studying, which may trigger a new breakthrough
in the application of low permittivity microwave dielectric
ceramics.
Therefore, in this work, CaAl2O4 ceramics are prepared via a
standard solid-state reaction method. The phase compositions,
microstructures are systematically investigated together with their
effects on the microwave dielectric properties. Moreover, infrared
reflectivity spectroscopy has been conducted and extrapolated to
the microwave range to understand the intrinsic dielectric
properties.

2. Experimental procedure

CaAl2O4 ceramics were prepared via a solid state reaction of

high purity CaCO3 (99.99%) and Al2O3 (99.99%) raw powders. The
stoichiometric powders were weighed and ball-milled for 24 h and
then calcined at 1250
C for 3 h. The calcined powders were re-
milled and mixed with 4 wt% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution as
binder and granulated manually. The granules were uniaxially
pressed into pellets with dimension of 12 mm in diameter and
5 mm in height. Finally, the pellets were sintered in the tempera-
ture range from 1400
C to 1475
C for 3 h to obtain the dense
ceramics.
The bulk density of the sintered pellets was measured using the
Archimedes method. Room temperature powder X-ray diffraction
(XRD: RIGAKU D/max 2550/PC, Rigaku Co., Tokyo, Japan) analysis
was adopted to identify the evolution of crystalline phase consti-
tutions. The XRD data for Rietveld analysis was collected in the 2q
range of 8e130
with steps of 0.02
and a count time of 1.5s. The
microstructures of sintered samples were evaluated by scanning
electron microscopy (SEM: SIRION-100, FEI Co., Eindhoven,
Netherlands).
The measurement of microwave dielectric properties was per-
formed in the frequency range of 10.8e11.2 GHz using the network
analyzer (E8363B, Agilent Technologies Inc., Palo Alto, CA). Qf
values were measured using the resonant-cavity method, and εr
and tf were measured using the HakkieColeman method [16,17].
The infrared reflectivity spectra covering the frequency region of
50e5000 cm1 were collected using a Fourier transform infrared
spectrometer (IFS 66v/S Vacuum, Bruker Optik GmbH, Ettlingen,
Germany).
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 1(a) shows the XRD patterns of CaAl2O4 calcined powders
and sintered ceramics proceed at various temperatures. With
increasing calcination temperature from 1050
C to 1250
C, the
compound is detected with the formation of three phases: CaAl2O4
(JCPDS #53-0191) as the main phase, and CaAl4O7 (JCPDS #23-
1037) and Ca3Al2O6 (JCPDS #38-1429) as the secondary phases.
After sintering at a higher temperature of 1400
C, the relevant
diffraction peaks of the secondary phases vanish and all the
diffraction peaks can be successfully indexed according to the
Fig. 1. (a) XRD patterns of CaAl2O4 powders calcined at 1050
C-1250
C for 3 h and
CaAl2O4 ceramics sintered at 1400
C for 3 h. (b) Profiles fits for the Rietveld refinement
of CaAl2O4 ceramics.
standard card of CaAl2O4 compound shown below. This indicates
that the single-phase CaAl2O4 ceramics have been successfully
prepared.
To further analyze the crystal structure, the XRD data of the
present ceramics is refined on the basis of monoclinic structure
with a space group of P21/n. It could be noted that the observed and
calculated diffraction profiles keep a good consistency, as
confirmed by the relatively low amplitudes of the difference blue
line drawn in Fig. 1(b). Moreover, the acceptable reliability factors
of the refinement (Rp ¼ 6.4%, Rwp ¼ 9.2% and c2 ¼ 4.76) indicate that
the monoclinic (P21/n) structure is valid and the refinement result
is reliable. The lattice parameters are calculated as a ¼ 8.69200 Å,
b ¼ 8.08907 Å, c ¼ 15.19524 Å and b ¼ 90.145
. The refined struc-
tural parameters are listed in the Table 1 and the prototypic crystal
structure is depicted in the inset of Fig. 1(b). Similar with the above-
mentioned BaAl2O4/SrAl2O4 compounds, the structure of CaAl2O4
contains three sets of Ca-sites (distinguished based on their
different coordination numbers with the surrounding oxygen
atoms), six possible Al-sites (in the center of the oxygen tetrahe-
dron) and twelve sets of O-sites. The different kinds of [AlO4] tet-
rahedron connect with each other via the corner-shared oxygen
atoms and construct the body frame of the CaAl2O4 ceramics.
Fig. 2 displays the SEM photographs of CaAl2O4 ceramics sin-
tered at different temperatures. As shown in Fig. 2(a), porous mi-
crostructures with relatively small grains are observed for the
sample sintered at 1400
C. With increasing sintering temperature,
an obvious grain growth behavior together with dense micro-
structures are observed, which should be ascribed to the increasing
 B. Liu et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 791 (2019) 1033e1037 1035

Table 1
Refine atomic coordinates and thermal displacement parameters of CaAl2O4
ceramics.

Atomic x y z Biso

Ca1 0.24394(60) 0.03267(51) 0.08805(38) 0.302(99)

Ca2 0.26582(56) 0.46812(55) 0.07044(33) 1.243(127)
Ca3 0.73990(52) 0.52546(49) 0.24971(44) 1.857(108)
Al1 0.42430(93) 0.32726(99) 0.23771(47) 0.175(162)
Al2 0.41927(102) 0.72976(83) 0.23366(47) 0.397(184)
Al3 0.59387(104) 0.83538(109) 0.07958(68) 2.113(248)
Al4 0.61691(88) 0.22604(106) 0.08080(58) 0.688(193)
Al5 0.93549(97) 0.72952(125) 0.08874(73) 2.469(266)
Al6 0.93930(93) 0.32799(102) 0.09317(50) 0.511(202)
O1 0.07893(157) 0.24351(149) 0.02590(90) 0.680(342)
O2 0.02019(155) 0.53830(210) 0.12228(91) 1.599(427)
O3 0.05338(154) 0.87489(161) 0.14243(90) 0.805(362)
O4 0.24558(187) 0.25257(142) 0.20574(81) 0.253(309)
O5 0.43305(177) 0.27485(163) 0.02344(102) 1.725(452)
O6 0.42963(191) 0.84684(171) 0.14653(97) 1.641(409)
O7 0.43454(174) 0.52664(211) 0.19088(89) 2.578(420)
O8 0.57936(170) 0.22535(132) 0.19401(81) 1.005(365)
O9 0.68386(144) 0.02754(203) 0.05475(75) 0.033(312)
O10 0.74925(178) 0.35292(181) 0.04216(95) 1.334(377)
O11 0.74843(185) 0.71837(172) 0.13473(85) 0.653(303)
O12 0.91816(171) 0.22884(143) 0.19862(101) 0.851(378)

driving force for grain growth. However, some abnormally large
rod-shaped and plate-shaped grains appear when sintered at
1475
C, which could be attributed to over-sintering.
Fig. 3 demonstrates the relative density and microwave dielec-
tric properties of the present ceramics as functions of sintering
temperatures. The relative density increases monotonously from
92% at 1400
C to 97% at 1500
C, which agrees with the densifi-
cation process shown in the SEM images. εr increases continuously
with increasing sintering temperature, until it saturates at the
maximum value of around 9.0. Besides, the changing trend of εr is in
good accordance with the relative density, implying that εr is
mainly dominated by the relative density. The Qf value increases
rapidly from 26,950 GHz at 1400
C to 89,000 GHz at 1425
C, fol-
lowed by a gradual rise to the maximum value of 91,350 GHz
(f ~ 11 GHz) at 1450
C and then decrease gradually to 77,000 GHz at
1500
C. It is notoriously known that the Qf value is determined not
Fig. 3. The relative density and microwave dielectric properties of CaAl2O4 ceramics as
functions of sintering temperatures.
only by the intrinsic properties but also by the extrinsic parameters
such as the porosity, point defects, and secondary phases [4,18,19].
As the present ceramics are all single phases and the structure is
constituted from strong AleO covalent bond which is not easy to
form oxygen vacancy, the variation of the microstructure should be
the primary factor affecting the resultant Qf value. Therefore, the
improvement of Qf value at 1450
C should be mainly ascribed to
the larger grain size with lower porosity. While, the following
deterioration of Qf value at above 1450
C could be attributed to the
inhomogeneous microstructure due to over-sintering. tf value is
closely related with εr and structural phase transitions [4]. In the
present samples, no remarkable change in tf values is observed as

Fig. 2. SEM images of CaAl2O4 ceramics sintered at various temperatures for 3 h: (a) 1400
C, (b) 1425
C, (c) 1450
C and (d) 1475
C.
1036 B. Liu et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 791 (2019) 1033e1037

Table 2 easy preparation, cheap raw materials and most importantly, the
Comparison of microwave dielectric properties of some typical microwave dielectric outstanding microwave dielectric properties, CaAl2O4 ceramics are
materials with low permittivity.
expected to be promising low-permittivity microwave dielectric
Material systems S. T. (
C) εr Qf (GHz) tf (ppm/
C) Ref. candidates with low dielectric loss.
ZnAl2O4 1375 8.5 56,300 79 [9] Furthermore, to better understand the intrinsic dielectric loss of
MgAl2O4 1400 8.75 68,900 75 [10] CaAl2O4 ceramics, the infrared reflectivity spectra are measured
Li2ZnGeO4 1200 6.5 35,400 60.6 [5] and demonstrated in Fig. 4. According to the classical oscillator
CaSnSiO5 1525 9.1 61,000 35 [19]
model, the obtained infrared reflectivity R(u) is related to the
CaMgSi2O6 1300 8.3 53,000 45 [20]
CaWO4 1200 8.7 75,000 54 [21] complex dielectric function ε*(u) via the following equations [27]:
BaMoO4 900 9.0 37,100 90 [22]
95 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
Na2Zn5(MoO4)6 590 8.1 35,800 [23]  ε* ðuÞ  12
62  
Mg2SnO4 1600 8.4 55,100 [24]
RðuÞ ¼  p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi  (1)
CaAl2O4 1450 8.9 91,350 55 This work  ε* ðuÞ þ 1

 
X
n Sj u2j  u2 Xn Sj ugj
*
ε ðuÞ ¼ ε∞ þ  2 i  2
j¼1 u2  u2 þ u 2 g2 j¼1 u2  u2 þ u2 g2j
j j j
00
¼ ε0 ðuÞ  iε ðuÞ
(2)

ε}ðuÞ X n
u S j gj
tan d ¼ z (3)
ε0 ðuÞ j¼1 ε0 ðuÞ u4j

where, ε∞ is the contribution of the electronic polarization; n

Fig. 4. (a) Measured and calculated infrared reflectivity spectra of CaAl2O4 ceramics. (b
and c) The real and imaginary parts of the complex responses obtained from the fitting
of the IR reflectivity spectra (the solid circles are the experimental values in the mi-
crowave region).
there is no compositional or structural change with increasing
sintering temperature. Unfortunately, the negative tf values
(~55 ppm/
C) are not desirable for practical applications where a
near-zero tf value is expected. To adjust the thermal stability of the
present ceramics, adding compounds with high positive tf value,
such as TiO2 (þ450 ppm/
C) [20], should be effective in tuning the
negative tf value towards zero. For the present ceramics, the opti-
mum microwave dielectric properties (εr ¼ 8.9, Qf ¼ 91,350 GHz,
tf ¼ 55 ppm/
C) are obtained when sintered at 1450
C. Table 2
lists the microwave dielectric properties of some typical material
systems with low permittivity [21e26]. Considering the merits of
represents the number of the IR active modes; uj, Sj, and gj denote
the eigenfrequency, strength and damping constant of the j-th IR
mode, respectively.
According to the factor group analysis of monoclinic structure
with P21/n space group, the IR active modes of CaAl2O4 ceramics
have been confirmed to be 15Auþ15Bu [28]. Therefore, thirty
infrared active modes are adopted to fit the infrared reflectivity
spectra (see Fig. 4(a)) and the obtained dispersion parameters of
each mode are summarized in Table 3. Fig. 4(b) and (c) show the
real and imaginary parts of the complex dielectric function calcu-
lated from the fitted IR reflectivity spectra, respectively. The
measured permittivity and dielectric loss in the microwave range
(black solid circles) are also plotted to compare with the calculated
ones. The measured permittivity (8.90) is slightly higher than the
calculated value (8.65) which is similar with the previous results
reported in Sr2LaAlTiO7 series [18]. The lower permittivity obtained
from the fitting of IR spectra is based on the fact that the eigen-
frequencies at IR range is much higher than the measured micro-
wave frequency, and the dielectric contributions of extrinsic
parameters may withdraw at the IR range. On the other hand, the
calculated and measured dielectric losses have the same order of
magnitude, implying that the majority dielectric loss at the mi-
crowave region is attributed to the absorptions of structural

Table 3
Phonon parameters obtained from the fitting of the infrared reflectivity spectra of CaAl2O4 ceramics.

j uj gj Dε0 j Dtandj  104 at 10 GHz j uj gj Dε0 j Dtandj  104 at 10 GHz j uj gj Dε 0 j Dtandj  104 at 10 GHz
1 66.95 7.35 0.71 0.2488 11 219.65 22.84 0.15 0.0210 21 543.07 17.64 0.03 0.0007
2 74.23 9.17 0.43 0.1435 12 246.84 58.77 0.28 0.0643 22 588.24 18.50 0.06 0.0012
3 111.56 9.32 0.69 0.1685 13 294.16 22.41 0.14 0.0109 23 643.54 38.06 0.06 0.0568
4 125.25 9.91 0.17 0.0223 14 340.46 22.47 0.01 0.0009 24 646.95 69.17 0.05 0.0016
5 128.16 17.18 0.36 0.0764 15 352.17 26.06 0.04 0.0034 25 680.14 38.34 0.09 0.0220
6 147.29 9.69 0.41 0.0623 16 381.58 24.13 0.07 0.0042 26 759.95 74.60 0.04 0.0012
7 152.09 57.38 0.32 0.0596 17 381.64 9.04 0.01 0.0001 27 773.83 14.17 0.10 0.0001
8 173.15 31.26 0.23 0.0458 18 422.23 16.08 0.38 0.0132 28 792.44 25.16 0.21 0.0033
9 183.23 125.92 0.13 0.0102 19 450.54 20.99 0.14 0.0056 29 840.90 4.15 0.05 0.0006
10 185.22 9.48 0.15 0.0157 20 540.67 46.23 0.05 0.0032 30 851.89 129.51 0.07 0.0012
ε∞ 3.01 0.0000
∑ 8.65 1.0687
 B. Liu et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 791 (2019) 1033e1037
phonon oscillation at the infrared region. Moreover, the vibration
modes below 250 cm1 give the primary contribution to the
permittivity (47%) and dielectric loss (88%). The reason for this
should be associated with the contributions to dielectric properties
of a given IR active mode are △εj ~ Sju2
j and △tandj ~ uSjgju4 j ,
and both decrease very fast with increasing uj [29].
4. Conclusions
CaAl2O4 ceramics have been prepared via a standard solid state
reaction method. Based on the previous results on CaAl2O4 ce-
ramics, the present work has expanded the understanding on their
crystal structure and intrinsic dielectric properties. Rietveld anal-
ysis of the XRD data revealed that the present ceramics belonged to
the P21/n space group with monoclinic crystal symmetry. The
measured IR reflectivity spectra were extrapolated to the micro-
wave range and the intrinsic dielectric properties were correlated
with the measured results. Excellent microwave dielectric proper-
ties with low permittivity (εr ¼ 8.9, Qf ¼ 91,350 GHz, tf ¼ 55 ppm/

C) were obtained in the present ceramics. Owing to the advantages
of low cost, easy preparation and excellent microwave dielectric
performances, CaAl2O4 ceramics are expected to be promising
candidates for low loss microwave dielectric ceramics.
Acknowledgements
Financially supports from National Natural Science Foundation
of China under grant number 51802062, 51672063, 51701091, and
open projects of Shanghai silicate institutes, Chinese Academy of
Sciences under grant number KLIFMD201708 are greatly appreci-
ated. The authors acknowledge the valuable help on the infrared
reflectivity measurement from the IR beam line workstation at
National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), China. The au-
thors are also thankful to the help of Professor Xiang Ming Chen on
the measurement of microwave properties in Zhejiang University.
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