Conductivity dispersion in supercooled calcium potassium nitrate: caged ionic motion viewed as part of standard behaviour

Abstract

Conductivity spectra of ionic materials with disordered structures are usually thought to consist of several parts, i.e., the DC conductivity, a power-law component, a nearly-constant-loss feature (if identified) and the (far-)infrared conductivity caused by vibrational motion. Such a decomposition may, however, easily lead to a misinterpretation of the underlying dynamics. Here, we discuss broad-band conductivity data of the supercooled glass-forming melt calcium potassium nitrate, of composition 0.4 Ca(NO₃)₂·0.6 KNO₃, often abbreviated as CKN. Data have been taken at frequencies up to the far infrared. We show that the frequency-dependent conductivity is very well reproduced by a superposition of only two components. One of them is due to vibrations, the other is caused by displacements of the mobile ions. The latter component, which does not follow a power law, is described in terms of a physical model called the MIGRATION concept. This model treatment has been found to apply in many solid electrolytes as well and is, therefore, considered to provide a “standard” formulation of the ion dynamics. The gradual transition from a correlated forward–backward (“caged”) ionic motion to a stepwise translational motion may be regarded as the main feature of the MIGRATION concept.