Description
Potassium niobate (KNbO3) is an inorganic compound with the formula KNbO3. A colorless solid, it is classified as a perovskite ferroelectric material. It exhibits nonlinear optical properties, and is a component of some lasers. Nanowires of potassium niobate have been used to produce tunable coherent light.
Chemical Properties
On cooling from high temperature, KNbO3 undergoes a series of structural phase transitions. At 435 °C, the crystal symmetry changes from cubic centrosymmetric (Pm3m) to tetragonal non-centrosymmetric (P4mm). On further cooling, at 225 °C the crystal symmetry changes from tetragonal (P4mm) to orthorhombic (Amm2) and at −50 °C from orthorhombic (Amm2) to rhombohedral (R3m).
Chemical Properties
-100 mesh with 99.9% purity; white powder(s) [STR93] [CER91]
Uses
Potassium niobate can be used to prepare bismuth sodium titanate(BNT)-KN ceramics (BNT–KN ceramics) by the mixed oxide method. The addition of KN to the BNT system increases the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the BNT-KN ceramics. These properties of the ceramic system are suitable for the development of lead-free capacitors. Cu dopped KNbO
3 single crystals also found application in semiconductor laser technology because Cu doping resulted in electronic states with near-infrared absorption bands.
General Description
Potassium niobate (KNbO
3, KN) is a perovskite-type well-known ferroelectric material with a wide range of applications in electromechanical, nonlinear optical, frequency doubler, and holographic storage system applications. Single crystal of a KNbO
3 is known to have high piezoelectric activity because of its high electromechanical coupling factors. Therefore KN materials have received much interest in the development of lead-free piezoelectric materials.
Flammability and Explosibility
Not classified
