Disorder controlled electrical transport properties of NdCo1−xNiO3

• Single phase NdCo1−xNixO3 were prepared using solid state reaction method.
• Drastic improvement in room temperature conductivity for substituted samples.
• Arrhenius and VRH conduction models employed to explain electrical transport.
• Disorder induced charge carrier localization dominates in the substituted samples.

The effect of Ni substitution on structural and electrical transport has been investigated in NdCo1−xNixO3 system for 0 ⩽ x ⩽ 0.5. The Rietveld refinement of XRD data confirms orthorhombic, Pbnm symmetry for all the samples. The lattice parameters and hence unit cell volume is found to increase linearly with increase in Ni concentration. Substitution of Ni leads to the increase in conductivity and samples have been found to display semiconducting behavior in measured range of temperature. The explanation for the variation of resistivity with substitution and temperature has been provided on the basis of substitutional disorder and spin state related effects. Arrhenius and variable range hopping conduction approaches have been used to explain the temperature variation of resistivity. These results suggest that disorder-induced localization of charge carriers dominate the electrical transport in the substituted samples.