Structural and ac electrical properties of a newly synthesized single phase rare earth double perovskite oxide: Ba2CeNbO6

A single phase rare earth double perovskite oxide Ba2CeNbO6 (BCN) is synthesized by solid-state reaction technique for the first time. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the sample at room temperature shows monoclinic structure, with the lattice parameters, a=5.9763 angstrom, b=5.975 angstrom and c=8.48 angstrom and beta=90.04 degrees. Impedance spectroscopy is used to study the ac electrical behavior of this material as a function of frequency (10(2)-10(6) Hz) at various temperatures (30-450 degrees C). A relaxation is observed in the entire temperature range. Conduction mechanism is investigated by fitting the complex impedance data to Cole-Cole equation. Complex impedance plane plots show only one semicircular arc, indicating only the grain contribution of dielectric relaxation. The scaling behavior of imaginary part of electric modulus (M '') and imaginary part of electrical impedance (Z '') suggests that the relaxation describes the same mechanism at various temperatures. The frequency dependence of conductivity is interpreted in terms of the jump relaxation model and is fitted to Jonscher's power law. The values of dc conductivities extracted from the Jonscher power law varies from 2.79 x 10(-7) to 3.5 x 10(-5) Sm-1 with the increase in temperature from 100 to 450 degrees C. The activation energies (0.37 eV) extracted from M ''(omega) and Z ''(omega) peaks are found to follow the Arrhenius law. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.