A superior description of AC behavior in polycrystalline solid electrolytes with current-constriction effects

Abstract

The conventional brick-layer model is not satisfactory either in theory or in practice for the description of dispersive responses of polycrystalline solid electrolytes with current-constriction effects at the grain boundaries. Parallel networks of complex dielectric functions have been shown to successfully describe the AC responses of polycrystalline sodium conductors over a wide temperature and frequency range using only around ten model parameters of well-defined physical significance. The approach can be generally applied to many solid electrolyte systems. The present work illustrates the approach by simulation. Problems of bricklayer model analysis are demonstrated by fitting analysis of the simulated data under experimental conditions.