Characterization of Polypyrrole Based Novel High Dielectric Materials for Low Frequency Applications

Neodymium oxide (Nd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf>) embedded in polypyrrole (PPy) with varying compositions were synthesized using the chemical polymerization technique. PPy and PPy/Nd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> composites were employed to the several characterization techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) studies. Room temperature AC conductivity studies were carried out in the frequency range 50 Hz to 5 MHz. PPy/Nd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf>-10 wt% composite exhibited highest conductivity of 2.69 × 10−² Scm− 1 among all the composites and an increase of two orders compared to PPy, which is noteworthy. Cole-Cole plots for the composites exhibited a non-Debye type relaxation. Interestingly, dielectric constant of PPy/Nd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf>-10 wt% composite in the frequency range 1–100 kHz was found to be high ≈ 1000. Also, the low frequency relaxation peaks, low dielectric loss of the composites makes them potential candidates in the design of low frequency operating devices.