Design of an AC Conductivity Measurement Setup for Sensor Materials Characterization

1. Introduction

Studies of the electronic nature of amorphous material gives information about its electrical behavior and this may be related to structural properties (Elliott, 1987Long, 1982). The disorder in atomic configuration is responsible for the existence of localized electronic states within the material. AC electrical conductivity exposes much information as regards the usefulness of these materials for various applications as well as on the role of localized states (Sreeram et al., 1991 Fu and Chen, 2003 Rahman & Mahanta, 1979Pike, 1972). The study of ac electrical conductivity sheds light on the behavior of charge carriers under ac field, their mobility and mechanism of conduction (Koops, 1951Brockman & White, 1971Jankowski, 1988Pal et al., 1994Mirtaheri et al., 1990). In this paper we report the design considerations and fabrication of a sensitive set up for the measurement of ac conductivity that can be employed for bulk samples. The calibration of the ac conductivity cell (dielectric cell) has been done by taking measurement on samples of known dielectric constant. Here we have used mica sheets to caliberate the cell.