Temperature and frequency dependent conductivity of bismuth zinc vanadate semiconducting glassy system

The ac conductivity of bismuth zinc vanadate glasses with compositions 50V(2)O(5)center dot xBi(2)O(3)center dot (50-x) ZnO has been studied in the frequency range 10(-1) Hz to 2 MHz and in temperature range 333.16 K to 533.16 K. The temperature and frequency dependent conductivity is found to obey Jonscher's universal power law for all the compositions of bismuth zinc vanadate glass system. The dc conductivity (sigma(dc)), crossover frequency (omega(H)), and frequency exponent (s) have been estimated from the fitting of experimental data of ac conductivity with Jonscher's universal power law. Enthalpy to dissociate the cation from its original site next to a charge compensating center (H-f) and enthalpy of migration (H-m) have also been estimated. It has been observed that mobility of charge carriers and ac conductivity in case of zinc vanadate glass system increases with increase in Bi2O3 content. In order to determine the conduction mechanism, the ac conductivity and its frequency exponent have been analyzed in the frame work of various theoretical models based on classical hopping over barriers and quantum mechanical tunneling. The ac conduction takes place via tunneling of overlapping large polarons in all the compositions of presently studied vanadate glasses. The fitting of experimental data of ac conductivity with overlapping large polarons tunneling model has also been done. The parameters; density of states at Fermi level (N(E-F)), activation energy associated with charge transfer between the overlapping sites (W-HO), inverse localization length (alpha) and polaron radius (r(p)) obtained from fitting of this model with experimental data are reasonable. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4759356]