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The influence of BaO content (up to 15 mol%) on the crystallization behaviour, structure, thermal properties and microwave dielectric properties of the BaO-CaO-B 2 O 3 -SiO 2 glasses and glass-ceramics system was investigated. The glasses were produced by melting at 1400 °C and quenching into water, and the glass-ceramics were produced via heat treatment at temperatures between 750 and 800 °C. The results of X-ray diffraction analysis showed that increasing the BaO content raised the resistance of the glass against crystallization and favoured the transformation of β-CaSiO 3 and α-CaSiO 3 phases, which crystallized in the Ba-free and in low BaO content compositions, into SiO 2 and Ba 4 Si 6 O 16 , which crystallized in compositions with higher concentrations of BaO. The BaO content had little influence on the glass transition temperature ( T g ) and the linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), but strongly reduced the softening point ( T s ). Even the addition of BaO as minor additives resulted in a dramatic reduction of the T s ; for example, the T s decreased from 902 °C for the Ba-free composition to 682 °C for the BaO-containing one (5%). Low values of the dielectric constant (5.9 ≤  ε r ≤ 6.63) and dielectric loss (1.12 × 10 −3 ≤ tan δ  ≤ 3.15 × 10 −3 ) were measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]