In order to obtain conductive powders with excellent performance at low cost and short preparation cycles, the gaseous penetration of Sm to BaTiO3 gel precursors was adopted to realize the synthesis and modification in only one step, which simplifies the preparation process by omitting the calcination procedure. Changes in constitution, structure and electrical properties of the modified materials were also investigated. The XPS and XRD illustrate that Sm does penetrate into the BaTiO3 system and the modified BaTiO3 materials own typically perovskite structure. The result indicates that the gaseous penetration of Sm owns the ability to dramatically decrease the resistivity, and the resistivity of Sm-penetrated BaTiO3 powders can be decreased to 15.9 Omega m. The materials obtained by the Sm-penetration to BaTiO3 gel precursors also exhibit higher dielectric properties as well as better stability on conductive behavior, and the grain-boundary resistance is much smaller. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.