Investigation on Microstructural, Electrical and Optical Properties of Nd-Doped BaCo0.01Ti0.99O3 Perovskite

The effects of microstructural, electrical and optical properties of (Ba1-xNdx)(Co0.01Ti0.99)O-3 (BNCT) (x = 0.00%, 0.25%, 0.50% and 0.75%) ceramics have been prepared the by sol-gel combustion technique. The structural phase evolution confirms tetragonal to pseudo-cubic phase with 0.50% and 0.75% doping of Nd3+ ions. The Rietveld refinement analysis of BNCT ceramics in terms of bond length Ba-O, Ti-O and Ba-Ti have been discussed, and it also confirmed the lattice parameters systematically. The co-doping of Nd3+ ions for Ba2+ ion at A-site leads to an increase of the energy bandgap (E-g) of the samples lying between 2.93 eV to 3.19 eV, which is ascertained by the blue shift as observed from the UV-visible spectroscopy. The intensity of photoluminescence (PL) emission was found to decrease with an increase in Nd3+ concentrations and the deconvolution of the luminescence peaks were discussed in terms of the role of defects, oxygen vacancies, grain size, and induced lattice strain. The complex permittivity (e ' + je ''), impedance plot and AC conductivity (sigma ') were examined at room temperature within the frequency range from 1 Hz to 1 MHz.