Dielectric relaxation and study of electrical conduction mechanism in BaZr0.1Ti0.9O3 ceramics by correlated barrier hopping model

This work aims to study the electrical conduction mechanism in the dielectric material BaZr0.1Ti0.9O3 (BZT) ceramics by applying AC signal in the frequency range of 102 Hz to 106 Hz. The phase purity and microstructure of the sample have been studied by X-ray diffraction refinement and field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) analysis. The appearance of resonance peaks in the loss tangent at high temperature is due to inherent dielectric relaxation processes of this oxide. The temperature dependent Cole-Cole plot has been studied in details to determine both the grain and grain boundary contribution to the conductivity. Electrical modulus analysis reveals that the hopping of charge carriers is the most probable conduction mechanism in BZT ceramics. The obtained data of AC conductivity obey the universal double power law and have been discussed in terms of microstructural network characteristics. The behavior of frequency exponent n of AC conductivity as a function of temperature verify the applicability of the correlated barrier hopping (CBH) model. The AC conductivity data are used to estimate the minimum hopping length, density of states at Fermi level, thermal conductivity and apparent activation energy. The value of activation energy confirms that the oxygen vacancies play a vital role in the conduction mechanism

Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations

Broadband excitation introduced at the speaker’s lips and the evaluation of its corresponding relative acoustic impedance spectrum allow for fast, accurate and non-invasive estimations of vocal tract resonances during speech and singing. However, due to radiation impedance interactions at the lips at low frequencies, it is challenging to make reliable measurements of resonances lower than 500 Hz due to poor signal to noise ratios, limiting investigations of the first vocal tract resonance using such a method. In this paper, various physical configurations which may optimize the acoustic coupling between transducers and the vocal tract are investigated and the practical arrangement which yields the optimal vocal tract resonance detection sensitivity at low frequencies is identified. To support the investigation, two quantitative analysis methods are proposed to facilitate comparison of the sensitivity and quality of resonances identified. Accordingly, the optimal configuration identified has better acoustic coupling and low-frequency response compared with existing arrangements and is shown to reliably detect resonances down to 350 Hz (and possibly lower), thereby allowing the first resonance of a wide range of vowel articulations to be estimated with confidence