The scientific research in area «Dielectric spectroscopy» (DS) in Kazan Federal University has a story during more than 30 years and successive researches in this field started from 1975. The head of experimental studies related is associate professor Yu.A. Gusev (department of radioelectronics) and head of theoretical research is Full Prof. R. R. Nigmatullin (department of theoretical physic) are developing method of DS during this period.
The research interests of the laboratory are centered on the area of soft condensed matter physics for investigation of the structure, dynamics, and macroscopic behavior of complex systems (CS). CS are a very broad and general class of materials that are typically non-crystalline. Polymers, biopolymers, colloid systems (emulsions and microemulsions), biological cells, oil systems, porous materials, and liquid crystals can all be considered as CS.
The modern DS technique may overlap extremely wide frequency (10-6 to 1012 Hz), temperature (- 170 °C to +500 °C) and pressure ranges[i]. DS is especially sensitive to intermolecular interactions and is able to monitor cooperative processes at the molecular level. Therefore, this method is more appropriate than any other to monitor such different scales of molecular motions. It provides a link between the investigation of the properties of the individual constituents of the complex material via molecular spectroscopy and the characterization of its bulk properties.
The experimental setup
Dielectric spectroscopy laboratory of radioelectronics department in the KFU has the following equipment:
1. Broad-Band Dielectric Spectrometer BDS Concept 80 (NOVOCONTROL) in the frequency range 3 µHz ÷ 3 GHz and pressure range 0 ÷ 3000 MPa (0 ÷ 3 kbar) with automatic temperature control by QUATRO Cryosystem (temperature range -150 °C ÷ +400 °C).
2. High-frequency response analyzer Solartron 1255. The frequency range covers 10 mkHz up to 20 МHz.
3. Electrochemical interface Solartron Analytical 1286. It presents itself the high-precision broadband potentiostat. The gadget base includes two embedded digital high precision voltmeters, which provide simultaneous measurement of voltage and current values, correspondingly.
4. The time-domain measuring system «Dipole» including a set of the measurements cells. The frequency range covers 500 kHz up to 10 GНz.
5. Thermostat LOIP FT-316-40 (TJ-TS-01/16К/40). Temperature range -40 °C ÷ +100 °C.