DC conductivity of VN-PbO-TeO2 amorphous semiconducting glasses

Temperature (80-450K) variation of dc conductivity of VN-PbO-TeO 2 glasses with different mol% of VN, PbO and TeO 2 have been reported. The glasses were prepared by usual melt cooling process from the melt at 750 °C to room temperature (25 °C) by quenching between two copper blocks. From XRD analysis, it is found that all the glasses are amorphous in nature. The glass transition temperatures (Tg) of the glasses are found to be from 268.80-302.33 °C from modulated differential scanning calorimetric (MDSC) analysis. DC conductivity of the glasses is found to vary from 1.875×10 -6 to 7.431×10 -9 ohm - 1 cm -1 at 360 K depending on the composition of the glasses. The carrier density determined was 0.45-2.1×10 21 cm -3 . The conduction was confirmed to be due to non-adiabatic small polaron hopping between vanadium ions. The materials show oxygen gas sensing property in ceramic form. DC conductivity of the glasses is found to decrease in oxygen atmosphere compared to air at a particular temperature.