Application of dielectric spectroscopy in ZnO varistor ceramics

There are two kinds of charges in dielectric materials, one is bound charge, and the other is free charge. Bound charge will introduce dielectric relaxation under applied AC electric field, which will be detected with dielectric spectroscopy. Free carrier will introduce DC conduction through the sample from one electrode to the other under DC electric field. But what can we do to obtain AC and DC properties of dielectric materials at the same time? In this paper, dielectric characteristics of ZnO varistor ceramics in a wide range of frequency and temperature are reported. DC conductivity is observed at low frequency and high temperature region and grainboundary Schottky barrier is obtained further. Dielectric loss peaks are observed at high frequency and low temperature region and single grainboundary electric breakdown voltage is calculated. At the end of the paper, the advancing trend of dielectric spectroscopy is discussed.