Cooperative or noncooperative dielectric relaxation in ionic solids: A discriminating experimental approach

Calculations, confirmed by experimental evidence on a polymer and on two io nically conducting solids, show that the variation of thermally stimulated depolarization currents (TSDC) with the heating rate depends on the polariz ation decay function that is assumed. This permits discrimination between m odels usually proposed for describing the non-Debye behavior of low-frequen cy dielectric relaxation in solids. It is also demonstrated that considerat ion of the kinetics involved in nonequilibrium TSDC spectroscopy is an esse ntial, and complementary, experimental tool for dielectric measurements car ried out under isothermal conditions in the frequency domain in establishin g models of relaxation. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979 (99)05204-4].