Tetravalent titanium addition to copper ferrite electrical properties

Electrical resistivity of the ferrites Cu1 + xTixFe2 - 2xO4 (x equals 0 to 0.5 insteps 0.05) has been measured in the temperature region 300 K to 700 K. It is seen that the plots of log (Rho) Vs 1/T exhibit a linear relationship throughout the temperature range. The conduction mechanism in these ferrites is explained on the basis of the hopping mechanism. The conduction in the low-temperature region (< 370 K) is due to impurities defects and interstitials, etc. In the high-temperature region (i.e., > 400 K), it is mainly due to hopping of small polarons. A sharp deviation from linearity is observed around 520 K which is related to the transition temperature close to tetragonal to cubic transformation. The compositional variation of resistivity increases slowly at lower content of Ti < 0.2 and monotonously for higher content > 0.3. The slight decrease in resistivity at x equals 0.2 is related to structural change from tetragonal to cubic. The variation of resistivity with Tix is attributed to the hindering of the mechanism for x < 0.2 and for x > 0.3 to impurities, in homogenous distribution of cations in the spinel.