Mallick, Debopriyo and Chakrabarti, Omprakash and Bhattacharya, Dipten and Mukherjee, Manabendra and Maiti, Himadri Sekhar and Majumdar, Rabindranath (2007) Electrical conductivity of cellular Si/SiC ceramic composites prepared from plant precursors. Journal of Applied Physics, 101 (3). Article No.-033707. ISSN 0021-8979

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Abstract

Electrical conductivity (sigma(dc)) of the cellular Si/SiC ceramic composites has been measured over a temperature range of 25-1073 K, while the thermoelectric power (S) has been measured over 25-300 K. Remarkably, these cellular compounds developed through the biomimetic route-where the ceramic system grows within a plant biotemplate retaining the imprint of structural intricacies of the native templates-are found to exhibit excellent mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties quite comparable to or even better than those of the systems prepared through the conventional ceramic route. The electrical conductivity, measured parallel (sigma(parallel to)) and perpendicular (sigma(perpendicular to)) to the growth axes of the native plants, depicts nearly temperature-independent anisotropy (sigma(perpendicular to)/sigma(parallel to)) of the order similar to 2, while the thermoelectric power is nearly isotropic. The charge conduction across the entire temperature regime is found to follow closely the variable range hopping mechanism. The conductivity anisotropy appears to be driven primarily by the unique microcellular morphology of the biotemplates, which can be exploited in many electrical applications. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Processing Science
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Namita Dutta
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2012 12:16
Last Modified:	15 May 2016 13:16
URI:	http://cgcri.csircentral.net/id/eprint/494

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