Investigation of ionic conductivity and relaxation in plasticized PMMA-LiClO4 solid polymer electrolytes

We have studied ion conduction and relaxation in plasticized PMMA-LiClO4 solid polymer electrolyte for different salt concentrations over a wide range of temperature. We have measured the complex conductivity spectra in a wide frequency range of 0.01 Hz-3 GHz and analyzed the experimental results using the random barrier model coupled with the contribution of electrode polarization in low frequency region. The temperature dependence of ionic conductivity and charge carrier relaxation time obtained from the analysis follows Vogel-Tammann-Fulcher behavior. The nearly constant loss response has been observed at low temperatures and/or at high frequency region. The temperature and frequency range of nearly constant loss response depends on the salt concentration in polymer matrix. The electric modulus spectra have been used to study charge carrier relaxation further. The stretched exponent, obtained from Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) function, indicates highly non-exponential relaxation in the polymer electrolytes.