Barium titanate Barium titanate Barium titanate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula BaTiO. Barium titanate appears white as a powder and is transparent when prepared as large crystals. It is a ferroelectric ceramic material that exhibits the photorefractive effect and piezoelectric properties. It is used in capacitors, electromechanical transducers and nonlinear optics. The solid exists in one of five polymorphs depending on temperature. From high to low temperature, these crystal symmetries of the five polymorphs are hexagonal, cubic, tetragonal, orthorhombic, and rhombohedral crystal structure. All of these phases exhibit the ferroelectric effect apart from the cubic phase. The high temperature cubic
Chemical element Chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei (that is, the same atomic number, or "Z"). For example, the atomic number of oxygen is 8, so the element oxygen consists of all atoms which have exactly 8 protons. 118 elements have been identified, of which the first 94 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 24 being synthetic elements. There are 80 elements that have at least one stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively radionuclides, which decay over time into other elements. Iron is the most abundant