Electrical Conductivity Mechanism in Unconventional Lead Vanadate Glasses

Abstract

Lead vanadate glasses of the system \((\hbox {V}_{2}\hbox {O}_{5})_{1-x}(\hbox {PbO})_{x}\) with \(x = 0.4\), 0.45, 0.5, 0.55, 0.6 have been prepared by the press-quenching technique. The dc (\(\sigma (0)\)) and ac \((\sigma (\omega ))\) electrical conductivities were measured in the temperature range from 150 to 420 K and the frequency range from \(10^{2}\) to \(10^{6}\) Hz. The electrical properties are shown to be sensitive to composition. The experimental results have been analyzed within the framework of different models. The dc conductivity is found to be proportional to \(T^{p}\) with the exponent p ranging from 8.2 to 9.8, suggesting that the transport is determined by a multi-phonon process of weak electron-lattice coupling. The ac conductivity is explained by the percolation path approximation (PPA). In this model, \(\sigma \) \((\omega )\) is closely related to the \(\sigma (0)\) and fitting the experimental data produces a dielectric relaxation time \(\tau \) in good agreement with the expected value in both magnitude and temperature dependence.