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Phys. Rev. B 66, 052105 (2002) [4 pages]

Origin of apparent colossal dielectric constants

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P. Lunkenheimer1, V. Bobnar1,2, A. V. Pronin1,3, A. I. Ritus3, A. A. Volkov3, and A. Loidl1
1Experimentalphysik V, Elektronische Korrelationen und Magnetismus, Institut für Physik, Universität Augsburg, D-86159 Augsburg, Germany
2Jožef Stefan Institute, P.O. Box 3000, SI-1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
3Institute of General Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991 Moscow, Russia

Received 14 June 2002; published 16 August 2002

Experimental evidence is provided that colossal dielectric constants ɛ′>~1000, sometimes reported to exist in a broad temperature range, can often be explained by Maxwell-Wagner-type contributions of depletion layers at the interface between sample and contacts or at grain boundaries. We demonstrate this on a variety of different materials. We speculate that the largest intrinsic dielectric constant observed so far in nonferroelectric materials is of order 102.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.66.052105
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.66.052105
PACS:
77.22.Ch, 77.22.Gm
 
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