Effects of swift heavy ion irradiation on dielectric relaxation and conduction mechanism in Ba0.90Sr0.10TiO3

•Paper demonstrates that high energy ion beams can be used to tune the bulk properties in polar dielectrics.•Impedance analysis inferred the resistive grain boundaries after irradiation. The effects of 100MeV O8+ ion beam irradiation on the structural and dielectric behavior of Ba0.90Sr0.10TiO3 ceramics have been analyzed. Ion irradiation does not change the crystalline structure, however the tetragonal distortion increases. The low frequency dielectric dispersion especially at high temperatures increases significantly after ion irradiation. The dielectric relaxation phenomenon has been probed through complex impedance and electric modulus approaches. The observed dielectric relaxation has distributed relaxation times and is a thermally activated process. Ion irradiation enhances the cationic disordering. The contributions of grains and grains boundaries towards impedance have been separated. It is inferred that the grain boundaries become more resistive due to ion irradiation and is associated to oxygen vacancies annihilation. Ion irradiation also decreases the bulk ferroelectric polarization demonstrating that the surface or near surface modifications may tune the bulk properties in polar dielectrics.