Rare Earth Aurivillius Oxides: Synthesis, electrical properties and renewable energy applications

There is a huge amount of pollution as well as the critical waste management issues create serious health problems caused by the lead-based ceramics for humans, marine organisms. Several countries are on a strict propaganda to implement the restrictions towards the utilization of lead as a candidate for device engineering. So now the focus shifted towards finding an alternative lead-free piezoelectric material which gives similar type of properties as compared to lead-based piezoelectric materials. In this report a polycrystalline ceramic having chemical formula Ba (Bi_0.9Dy_0.1) Nb₂O₉ (BBDNO termed further). The dielectric constant and loss of the ceramics have been examined for a frequency sweep 1 kHz to 1 MHz at different temperatures. The microstructure of the natural sample surface reveals that the presence of grain of various size and EDS spectra confirms all the elements are present without any impurity. The conductivity studies revealed that the experimental data follows the Jonscher's power law. The impedance spectroscopy suggests that the prepared sample has non-Debye type of relaxation. Further, the pellet was coated with silver electrode on opposite sides and utilized to harvest the biomechanical pressure imparted from finger tapping.