Relaxation dynamics and polydispersivity associated with defects and ferroelectric correlations in Ba-doped EuTiO3.

We present the frequency- and temperature-dependent dielectric response of Eu1-x Ba x TiO3 (0 ⩽ x ⩽ 0.5) in detail. Excluding grain boundary effects, four relaxation mechanisms were observed. Relaxation dynamics were observed to arise due to hopping conduction associated with defects, namely oxygen vacancies as well as Eu3+ and Ti3+ ions. Dielectric relaxation analysis led to the identification of Ti ions in two different environments with different relaxation rates in the overall EuTiO3 perovskite structure. The emergence of another relaxation mechanism associated with ferroelectric order as a consequence of the formation of polar regions was also observed for higher Ba concentrations. The addition of Ba led to the identification of relaxation dynamics associated with hopping conduction between Eu ions, Ti ions (in the regions with and without oxygen vacancies) and with the formation of ferroelectric polar regions. Furthermore, the polydispersivity and relaxation times were extracted within the framework of the modified Debye model. Relaxation times have been observed to increase with a decrease in temperature while larger values of polydispersivity reveal a wide distribution of relaxation times due to the presence of lattice parameter and energy barrier distributions.

Chemical Synthesis of Iron Antimonide (FeSb2) and Its Thermoelectric Properties.

Low temperature thermoelectric (TE) materials are in demand for more efficient cooling and power generation applications. Iron antimonide (FeSb2) draws great attention over the past few years because of its enhanced power factor values. Polycrystalline bulk FeSb2 nanopowder was prepared via a low-temperature molten salts approach followed by subsequent thermal treatment in synthetic air and hydrogen gas for calcination and reduction reactions, respectively. Structural analysis confirms the desired final phase with submicrometer grain size and high compaction density after consolidation using spark plasma sintering (SPS). TE transport properties revealed that the material is n-type below 150 K and p-type above this temperature; this suggests antimony vacancies in FeSb2. The electrical conductivity increased significantly, and the highest conductivity achieved was 6000 S/cm at 100 K. The maximum figure-of-merit, ZT, of 0.04 is achieved at 500 K, which is about 6 times higher than the earlier reported state-of-the art ZT value for the same material.