Effect of conditional glass former variation on electrical transport in Li2O–P2O5 glassy and glass-ceramic ionic system

• Substation of MoO3 in 50Li2O–(50-x)P2O5–xMoO3 suppresses the crystallization.
• A comparative study of electrical transport in glass and glass-ceramic is reported.
• Glass and glass-ceramics exhibit comparable conductivity.

Giving emphasis to electrical transport in the thermally unstable region, a conditional glass former based system 50Li2O–(50-x)P2O5–xMoO3 is investigated. Though glass forming region is narrow, the electrical conductivity exhibits significant rise up to x ≤ 15 mol%. Scanning electron microscopy investigations suggest existence of tiny crystallites well separated by glass tissues for higher MoO3 content samples. It is therefore revealed that addition of MoO3 improves the thermal stability. Electronic conductivity in this system is found to be fairly low and suggests phonon assisted polaron hopping. Electrical conductivity is found to be comparable to glass and glass-ceramic samples.