ac Conductivity analysis and dielectric relaxation behaviour of NaNO3–Al2O3 composites

The electrical conductivity of NaNO3–xAl2O3 composites has been studied over the wide range of temperature and frequency by means of impedance spectroscopy. The real part of the frequency dependent conductivity exhibits a simple power law feature and the dimensionless frequency exponent n has been determined. The conductivity spectra show scaling behaviour when the conductivity spectra are scaled by σdcT, where T is temperature in Kelvin. The real part of dielectric permittivity shows saturation at higher frequencies and a strong dispersion at lower frequencies. The imaginary part of permittivity varies inversely with frequency, due to the presence of dc conductivity. The frequency dependent plots of M″ and Z″ show that the conductivity relaxation is non-Debye in nature. The Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts stretched exponential function was used to describe the modulus spectra and the stretching exponent β is found to be temperature independent. The conductivity relaxation time has been estimated from the modulus spectra. The activation energy responsible for relaxation has been evaluated and it was found to be almost same as that of dc conductivity.