Studies on the electrical and dielectric properties of chemically synthesized α-PbO nanoparticles

Lead(II) oxide nanoparticles have two forms namely the α-PbO with tetragonal structure and β-PbO with orthorhombic structure. The α-PbO nanoparticles were synthesized via simple chemical precipitation method. The morphology of the nanocrystallites was characterized by XRD technique which revealed that the synthesized nanocrystallite belongs to the α-PbO phase. The impedance spectroscopy was used to study the electrical and dielectric properties such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss, impedance, and AC conductivity as a function of frequency of the applied electric field and temperature. The results indicated the effective contributions of the grain boundaries are predominant due to the fact that smaller nanoparticles have larger specific surface area which means increased fraction of grain boundaries.