Pure CCTO, however, can be easily synthesized by standard solid state methods via intimate mixtures of the metal carbonate and oxide precursors at temperatures between 1000 and 1200 °C.

[3] However, CCTO exhibits a dielectric constant upwards of 10,200 at 1 MHz, with a low loss tangent until approximately 300 °C.

The colossal-dielectric phenomenon is attributed to a grain boundary (internal) barrier layer capacitance (IBLC) instead of an intrinsic property associated with the crystal structure.

[1][4] This barrier layer electrical microstructure with effective permittivity values in excess of 10, 000 can be fabricated by single-step processing in air at ~1100 °C.

CCTO is therefore an attractive option to the currently used BaTiO3-based materials which require complex, multistage processing routes to produce IBLCs of similar capacity.