Electric modulus formalism and electrical transport property of ball mill synthesized nanocrystalline Mn doped ZrO2 solid solution

Abstract

Here we report the formation of Mn doped nanocrystalline ZrO2 solid solution synthesized by high energy ball-milling method and the transport mechanism in the temperature range 298K<T<523K and in the frequency range 20Hz–2MHz. Rietveld method is employed for analysis of phase formation mechanism, structural and microstructural characterization of different phases and relative phase abundances using XRD patterns. The electrical study shows the dc conductivity enhances as the doping percentage increases. Complex electric modulus study shows low frequency region approaches to ideal Debye type behaviour while the high frequency side deviates. Alternating current conductivity is found to follow the power law σ‘(f,T)∝fsTn. A transformation from small polaron hopping to correlated barrier hopping has been observed from the temperature dependence frequency exponent study. The contribution of grain boundary resistance is found to be dominating over the grain resistance in the ac conduction process.