Studies on morphological and electrical properties of Al incorporated combusted iron oxide

The aluminium incorporated iron oxide samples were prepared by combustion route using aluminium nitrate and ferric trichloride as precursors. The samples were characterized for their morphological, dielectrical, impedance and thermal conductivity properties as a function of temperature. A strong low frequency dielectric dispersion is found to exist in these samples; this is ascribed to the presence of the ionized space charge carriers such as oxygen ion vacancies and interfacial polarization. The room temperature dielectric constant and the loss tangent (tan δ) at 1 kHz are 315 and 0.0855 for optimized 10 at.% Al:Fe₂O₃ sample, respectively. The frequency analysis of dielectric and ac conduction properties of these samples suggests the conduction process in these samples to be via oxygen ion vacancy motion through various defect sites. Impedance spectroscopy is used to characterize the electrical behavior. Results indicate that the relaxation mechanism of the material is temperature and frequency dependent and has dominant bulk contribution in different temperature ranges.