Low-temperature Electrical Properties and Correlated Barrier Hopping Conduction Mechanism in CdTiO3

Abstract

CdTiO3 nanoparticles were synthesized by solid-state reaction technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirms the formation of rhombohedral CdTiO3 nanoparticles and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows the irregularly shaped nanoparticles. The ac conductivity data was fitted using Jonscher’s power law to find the frequency exponent "s". Correlated barrier hopping (CBH) is found to be prevailing conduction mechanism from 300 K to 160 K. The density of states (DOS) calculated by applying CBH model lie in the range of 2.89 x 1020 eV-1cm-3 to 2.96 x 1021 eV-1cm-3. The calculated minimum hopping distance (Rmin) was 2.13 x 10-9 m. The low values of tangent loss (< 1) at all temperatures suggest CdTiO3 as a potential material in electrical devices with low energy losses. The shifting of maxima towards higher frequencies with the decrease in temperature in imaginary modulus plots suggests the thermally triggered hopping process in CdTiO3 nanoparticles. The modulus studies confirm that hopping is the dominant conduction mechanism in CdTiO3 nanoparticles as suggested by ac conductivity studies