Real space imaging of the microscopic origins of the ultrahigh dielectric constant in polycrystalline CaCu3Ti4O12

The origins of an ultrahigh dielectric constant in polycrystalline CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) were studied using the combination of impedance spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and scanning probe microscopy (SPM). Impedance spectra indicate that the transport properties in the 0.1Hz–1MHz frequency range are dominated by a single parallel resistive-capacitive (RC) element with a characteristic relaxation frequency of 16Hz. dc potential distributions measurements by SPM illustrate that significant potential drops occur at the grain boundaries, which thus can be unambiguously identified as the dominant RC element. High frequency ac amplitude and phase distributions illustrate very weak grain boundary contrast in SPM, indicative of strong capacitive coupling across the interfaces. These results demonstrate that the ultrahigh dielectric constant reported for polycrystalline CCTO materials is related to grain-boundary behavior.