Structural and optical characterization of Cr2O3 nanostructures: Evaluation of its dielectric properties

The structural, optical and dielectric properties of as-grown Cr2O3 nanostructures are demonstrated in this paper. Powder X-ray diffractometry analysis confirmed the rhombohedral structure of the material with lattice parameter, a = b = 4.953 angstrom; c = 13.578 angstrom, and average crystallize size (62.40 +/- 21.3) nm. FE-SEM image illustrated the mixture of different shapes (disk, particle and rod) of as-grown nanostructures whereas; EDS spectrum confirmed the elemental purity of the material. FTIR spectroscopy, revealed the characteristic peaks of Cr-O bond stretching vibrations. Energy band gap (3.2 eV) of the nanostructures has been determined using the results of UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer. The dielectric properties of the material were checked in the wide frequency region (100Hz-30 MHz). In the low frequency region, the matrix of the dielectric behaves like source as well as sink of electrical energy within the relaxation time. Low value of dielectric loss exhibits that the materials posses good optical quality with lesser defects. The ac conductivity of the material in the high frequency region was found according to frequency power law. The physical-mechanism and the theoretical-interpretation of dielectric-properties of Cr2O3 nanostructures attest the potential candidature of the material as an efficient dielectric medium. (C) 2014 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.