Temperature-driven complex dielectric and polaron-hopping mediated electrical conduction in aurivillius Gd2MoO6

Abstract

In this work, aurivillius gadolinium molybdate (Gd2MoO6) was synthesized by the conventional solid-state route which was accompanied by cutting-edge characterization i.e., structural, and electrical, to give insight into the material characteristics required for possible high-temperature applications. The single-phase crystalline nature with monoclinic symmetry (C2/c, Space group-15) of Gd2MoO6 was confirmed by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. The average particle size was obtained to be ∼0.495 µm. The electrical conductivity and dielectric properties of a Gd2MoO6 plate capacitor were investigated in the frequency range between 10 Hz and 1 MHz and temperature from 473 to 773 K. A high dielectric constant (ε') of ∼3272 and low dielectric loss (δ) of ∼200 was observed at the low frequency and high-temperature regions, respectively. The Maxwell–Wagner interfacial polarization was found to be responsible for the decrease of the dielectric constant with increasing frequency. The behavior with the temperature of the frequency exponent (n) from the fitted conductivity spectra by Jonscher power law corresponds to the non-overlapping small polaron tunneling model between 473–673 K and correlated barrier hopping model at/over 673 K. The non-exponential Kohlrausch Williams-Watts function was introduced to fit the imaginary modulus (M′′) spectra and the activation energy was obtained to be 0.81 eV for grain and 0.94 eV for grain boundary conduction. The Nyquist plots(Z′vs.Z′′) differentiate the grain and grain boundary contribution and were fitted with the combinations of resistance (R), capacitance (C), and constant phase element (Q) in an equivalent circuit model(RC)(RCQ). Typical negative temperature coefficient of resistance behaviors of Gd2MoO6 suggest its possible application as thermistors in modern electronics circuits.