Investigation of structural, morphological, and electrical conductivity study for understanding transport mechanisms of perovskite CH3NH3HgCl3

Imen Gharbi; Abderrazek Oueslati; Ayten Ates; Abdelfattah Mahmoud; Mustapha Zaghrioui; Mohamed Gargouri

doi:10.1039/d3ra00671a

Investigation of structural, morphological, and electrical conductivity study for understanding transport mechanisms of perovskite CH₃NH₃HgCl₃

RSC Adv. 2023 Mar 29;13(15):10036-10050. doi: 10.1039/d3ra00671a. eCollection 2023 Mar 27.

Authors

Imen Gharbi¹, Abderrazek Oueslati¹, Ayten Ates², Abdelfattah Mahmoud³, Mustapha Zaghrioui⁴, Mohamed Gargouri¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Spectroscopic Characterization and Optical Materials, Faculty of Sciences, University of Sfax B.P. 1171 3000 Sfax Tunisia oueslatiabderrazek@yahoo.fr.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Sivas Cumhuriyet University 58140 Sivas Turkey.
³ GREENMAT, CESAM, Institute of Chemistry B6, University of Liège Liège 4000 Belgium.
⁴ Université François-Rabelais de Tours, Laboratoire GREMAN UMR-CNRS 7347 15 rue de la Chocolaterie, IUT de Blois 41029 Blois Cedex France.

Abstract

Along with morphological and structural studies, the temperature and frequency dependence of the electrical and dielectric properties of the CH₃NH₃HgCl₃ (MATM) compound was investigated and analyzed. SEM/EDS and XRPD analyses proved the purity, composition, and perovskite structure of the MATM. DSC analysis reveals the existence of an order-disorder phase transition of a first-order type at about 342 ± 2 K and 320 ± 1 K (heating and cooling, respectively), attributed to the disorder of [CH₃NH₃]⁺ ions. The overall results of the electrical study provide arguments for the ferroelectric nature of this compound and aim to broaden the current knowledge on the thermally activated conduction mechanisms of the studied compound via impedance spectroscopy. The electrical investigations have shown the dominant transport mechanisms in different frequency and temperature ranges, proposing the CBH model in the ferroelectric phase and the NSPT model in the paraelectric phase. The temperature dependence of the dielectric study reveals the classic ferroelectric nature of the MATM. As for the frequency dependence, it correlates the frequency-dispersive dielectric spectra with the conduction mechanisms and their relaxation processes.