Temperature dependent dielectric and electric properties of zinc silicate nanorods

Abstract

In this article, single crystalline pristine zinc silicate (Zn2SiO4) nanorods were grown by low temperature hydrothermal technique. The morphological and crystal structural analysis reveals the formation of nanostructures with nanorods shape and willemite structure of the α-Zn2SiO4 nanorods phase. Field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) studies shows that length and radius of grown nanorods were in range of 1.5–2μm and 25–30 nm, respectively. Presence of various characteristic peaks in Zn2SiO4 nanorods were confirmed by Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. A very high dielectric constant of 222 was observed at room temperature and a sharp increase in the dielectric constant with an ultra-high dielectric constant of ∼19185 was observed at 100 °C. The variation of dielectric constant, loss and ac conductivity as a function of frequency was also studied. Temperature dependent (RT to 300 °C) dielectric constant, dissipation factor and ac conductivity were also investigated in the frequency range of 20 Hz–2MHz for the first time. It was observed that ac conductivity increased with increase of temperature up to 100 °C and then decreased. Such high dielectric and electric properties of Zn2SiO4 shows its great potential towards various nano-scale high energy capacitor and high-k dielectric nano-transistor applications.