Nearly constant loss effect in sodium borate and silver meta-phosphate glasses: New insights

We present new insights into the Nearly Constant Loss (NCL) effect, which are based on a study of conductivity as a function of temperature and frequency in 0.3Na2O · 0.7B2O3 and 0.5AgI · 0.5AgPO3 glasses. In these systems, the ionic conductivity has been measured over a temperature range from 4 K to 475 K and in a frequency range from a few mHz to a few MHz. The conductivity spectra taken at various temperatures have then been mapped on to a representation of conductivity versus temperature (or inverse temperature) at fixed frequency. Indeed, such plots are often published in studies of the NCL effect. For a given system and a given frequency, an equivalent mapping is achieved by using suitable scaled model conductivity spectra derived from the MIGRATION concept. This enables us to identify, at fixed frequency, the temperature of transition from the ionic conductivity caused by the “ordinary” correlated hopping motion of the mobile ions (now known as the “first” universality) to the classical NCL behaviour (which Nowick termed “new” or “second” universality). We describe the details of our procedure and show that insights emerge with regard to both the high-frequency plateau of the conductivity component due to “ordinary” hopping and the NCL effect itself.