Conductivity and modulus formulation in lithium modified bismuth zinc borate glasses

Abstract

The conductivity and modulus formulation in lithium modified bismuth zinc borate glasses with compositions xLi2O–(50-x) Bi2O3–10ZnO–40B2O3 has been studied in the frequency range 0.1 Hz–1.5 × 105 Hz in the temperature range 573 K–693 K. The temperature and frequency dependent conductivity is found to obey Jonscher's universal power law for all the studied compositions, the dc conductivity (σdc), crossover frequency (ωH), and frequency exponent (s) have been estimated from the fitting of the experimental data of ac conductivity with Jonscher's universal power law. Enthalpy to dissociate the cation from its original site next to a charge compensating centre (Hf) and enthalpy of migration (Hm) have been estimated. It has been observed that number of charge carriers and ac conductivity in the lithium modified bismuth zinc borate glasses increases with increase in Li2O content. Further, the conduction mechanism in the glass sample with x = 0 may be due to overlapping large polaron tunneling, whereas, conduction mechanism in other studied glass samples more or less follows diffusion controlled relaxation model. The ac conductivity is scaled using σdc and ωH as the scaling parameter and is found that these are suitable scaling parameter for conductivity scaling. Non-Debye type relaxation is found prevalent in the studied glass system. Scaling of ac conductivity as well as electric modulus confirms the presence of different type of conduction mechanism in the glass samples with x = 0 and 5 from other studied samples. The activation energy of relaxation (ER) and dc conductivity (Edc) are almost equal, suggesting that polarons/ions have to overcome same barrier while relaxing and conducting.