Effect of alkali content on AC conductivity of borate glasses containing two transition metals

Sodium borate glasses containing iron and molybdenum ions with the total concentration of transition ions constant and gradual substitution of sodium oxide (network modifier) by borate oxide (network former) was prepared. Densities, molar volume, DC and AC conductivities are measured. The trends of these properties are attributed to changes in the glass network structure. Their DC and AC conductivity increased with increasing NaO concentration. The increase of AC conductivity of sodium borate glasses is attributed to the chemical composition and the hopping mechanism of conduction. Measurements of the dielectric constant (epsilon) and dielectric loss (tan delta) as a function of frequency (50 Hz-100 kHz) and temperature (RT-600 K) indicate that the increase in dielectric constant and loss (epsilon and tan delta) values with increasing sodium ion content could be attributed to the assumption that Fe and Mo ions tend to assume network-forming position in the glass compositions studied. The variation of the value of frequency exponent s for all glass samples as the function of temperature at a definite frequency indicates that the value of s decreases with increasing the temperature which agrees with the correlated barrier-hopping (CBH) model. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.