Structural and Electrical Transport Properties of NASICON type Na$_{3}$Zr$_{2-x}$Ti$_{x}$Si$_2$PO$_{\rm 12}$ ($x=$ 0.1-0.4) Solid Electrolyte Materials

Abstract: We report the structural, resistivity, impedance, and dielectric studies of isovalent substituted Na${3}$Zr${2-x}$Ti${x}$Si$_2$PO${\rm 12}$ ($x=$ 0.1--0.4) NASICON type solid electrolyte materials. The Rietveld refinement of XRD patterns shows the monoclinic phase with space group of C 2/c for all the samples. The resistivity analysis shows the Arrhenius-type thermal conduction with an increase in activation energy with doping is explained based on decreased unit cell volume. We use Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars (MWS) relaxation and space charge or interfacial polarization models to explain the frequency and temperature-dependent variations of electric permittivity. The double relaxation peaks in the dielectric loss data show the two types of relaxation mechanisms of different activation energy. The real ($\epsilon^{'}$) and imaginary ($\epsilon^{''}$) parts of permittivity are fitted using the modified Cole-Cole equation, including the conductivity term, which show the non-Debye type relaxation over the measured frequency and temperature range. The impedance analysis shows the contributions from grain and grain boundary relaxation. The fitting performed using the impedance and constant-phase element (CPE) confirm the non-Debye type relaxation. Moreover, the electric modulus analysis confirms the ionic nature having thermally activated relaxation and the modulus scaling analysis shows a similar type of relaxation in the measured temperature range. The modified power law is used to understand the frequency dependence of {\it a.c.} conductivity data. The temperature dependence of exponent ($s$) in modified power law suggests the change in the conduction mechanism from near small polaron tunneling (NSPT) to correlated barrier hopping (CBH) above room temperature. The larger values of $\epsilon$$_{r}$ indicate these materials as a potential candidate for charge-storage devices.