Structural, optical and dielectric properties of Ce0.9Nd0.1O1.95 nanocrystalline oxygen ion conductors: Effect of sintering temperature

Neodymium doped nanocrystalline ceria [Ce0.9Nd0.1O1.95] was prepared through citrate auto-ignition method. The prepared samples were sintered at five different temperatures starting from 400 °C up to 1200 °C. Rietveld׳s powder structure refinement analysis of XRD data confirmed the single phase cubic fluorite structure of the prepared samples with space group Fm3¯m and the obtained particle size and lattice parameter values were found to vary with sintering temperature from 6.68 nm to 39.51 nm and from 5.39077 Å to 5.42317 Å respectively. The optical properties were studied using FT-IR and UV-vis absorption spectra. The FT-IR spectra confirm the presence of functional groups and chemical bonding in the material. The optical band gap was calculated from UV-vis spectra and its value was found to decrease from 3.70 eV to 2.46 eV with increase in sintering temperature. The dc conductivity was found to be thermally activated and decreased with increase in sintering temperature. The nature of impedance spectra reveals the presence of both grain and grain boundary effect. The tangent loss exhibited the presence of relaxation peaks due to the presence of defect pair in the synthesized samples.