F anion transport in nanocrystalline SmF3 and in mechanosynthesized, vacancy-rich Sm x—1BaxF3—x

Nanostructured materials can show considerably different properties as compared to their coarse-grained counterparts. Especially prepared by high-energy ball milling they are to be characterized by a large fraction of point defects in the bulk and structurally disordered interfacial regions. Here, we explored how the overall conductivity of SmF3 can be enhanced by mechanical treatment and to which degree aliovalent substitution is able to further enhance anion transport. For this purpose nanocrystalline (hexagonal) SmF3 was prepared by high-energy ball milling; mechanosynthesis helped us to replace Sm3+ in SmF3 by Ba2+ and to create vacancies in the F anion sublattice. We observed a remarkable increase in total (direct current) conductivity when going from nano-SmF3 to Sm1−x Ba x F3−x for x = 0.1. Electrical modulus spectroscopy was used to further characterize the corresponding increase in electrical relaxation frequencies.

Dielectric, impedance, modulus spectroscopy and AC conductivity studies on novel organic ferroelectric diisopropylammonium chloride (dipaCl)

Organic molecular ferroelectric diisopropylammonium chloride (dipaCl) was successfully synthesized using diisopropylamine, hydrochloric acid (57%) and methanol solution. Dielectric permittivity, impedance, modulus spectroscopy and conductivity were systematically studied by Capacitance–Conductance ([Formula: see text] – [Formula: see text] measurements in the temperature range of 373–445 K. Dielectric property tests clearly show that the organic molecular ferroelectric dipaCl obeys Curies–Weiss law 1/[Formula: see text] = ([Formula: see text]–[Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text]. The real (Z′) and imaginary (Z′′) parts of the electrical modulus were calculated from the various values of 𝜀′ and 𝜀′′. It is shown that AC conductivity satisfies the relation [Formula: see text], where the power exponent [Formula: see text] depends on temperature and frequency. From Arrhenius equation, the activation energies [Formula: see text]and [Formula: see text] are also calculated which describes the complete conduction mechanism of dipaCl.