The ionic conductivity of alkali aluminum germanium phosphate glasses - comparison of Plasma CAIT with two electrode DC measurements

The ionic conductivity of alkali aluminum germanium phosphates (MAGP) has been investigated by two different techniques, i.) a fs-Plasma-Charge Attachment Induced Transport (CAIT) approach and ii.) a classical two electrode DC approach. Amorphous MAGP samples of the composition M1.5Al0.5Ge1.5(PO4)(3) M=(Li-Cs) have been synthesized by the melt-quenching technique. Comparison of fs-Plasma-CAIT and DC data reveal that the ionic conductivities as well as the activation energies for ion transport agree within the error margins of the experiment. While conventional expectation suggests that a DC approach should fail because of spontaneous charge carrier blocking, this work demonstrates that DC measurements are a simple tool for quantifying ionic conductivities provided that only a small amount of charge has been transported in total.