Investigations on structural and electrical properties of Li₂NiSiO₄

A nanocrystalline Li₂NiSiO₄ has been prepared by sol-gel synthesis technique. The annealed samples were characterized using TG-DTA, XRD and SEM-EDX. XRD pattern show the crystalline nature of the samples well appreciating the thermal behaviour of the materials, at temperature between 800°C-1000°C given stable phase. Morphology of the materials was investigated through the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the particles were found to be ofspherical shapes. The chemical composition was identified by the techniques of Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) along with X-ray mapping that is integrated with SEM. The electrical relaxation studies were explored using the conductivity spectrum comprises of super-linear power law (SPL) dependence. The activation energies were calculated from straight line fit to beEσ= (0.25±0.03) eV, Ec₁ = (0.21±0.03) and Ec₂= (0.13±0.02) eV. The temperature dependence of dc conductivity and hopping frequency is evident from Arrhenius plots.