Conductivity and dielectric behaviour of indium substituted zinc ferrites prepared by coprecipitation method

This paper presents the results concerning dielectric behavior and conductivity of the nanosized Zn1-xInxFe2O4 powders (x = 0, 0.15, 0.2, and 0.3), obtained by coprecipitation method. The frequency dependence of dielectric permittivity and conductivity of the samples is determined in the frequency range of 1-10(5) Hz, at temperatures from 300-350 K, while the temperature dependence of conductivity was recorded at 100 Hz, 10 kHz and 100 kHz. The ac conductivity was found to follow universal dielectric response, which is typical for charge transport by hopping or tunneling processes. Analyzing the variation of the parameter n (as a measure of the degree of correlation between conductivity and frequency), with the temperatures we discuss the possible conduction mechanism in investigated samples. Qualitatively, non-overlapping small polarons (NSPT) are usually associated with increase in n with increasing temperature, while correlated barrier hopping (CBH) shows a decrease in n with increasing T.