Electrical and structural characterisation of nanostructured titania coatings deposited on interdigitated electrode system

[Display omitted] ► La/TiO 2 and Nb/TiO 2 nanocrystalline coatings as interdigitated electrode system for sensors. ► A method for the computation of conductivity and relative permittivity was proposed. ► Nb causes an increase of electrical properties, while La has the opposite effect. This paper presents the electrical properties of La- and Nb-doped nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO 2) thin coatings deposited on the alumina substrate with gold electrodes in the interdigitated form to obtain appropriate devices for sensor application. Electrical parameters such as conductivity σ and permittivity ɛ were calculated using measured values of phase angle θ m , capacitance C m and resistance R m . These values were measured using an HP-4194A Impedance/Gain-Phase Analyzer with a Z-probe in the frequency range from 10 3 Hz to 10 8 Hz. The measured results showed that with addition of 2, 4 or 6 at% of lanthanum, conductivity and permittivity of analysed samples are decreasing, whereas the addition of niobium in the same percentage follows the opposite trend.