The contribution of anion disorder to ionic conductivity on single crystals of β-PbF2

The effect of the different cooling processes on the disorder of flourine ions and ionic conductivity in β-PbF₂ has been studied by X-ray method and ionic conductivity measurements on single crystals below the transition temperature T_c. The spike-like diffuse scattering was observed along the <111>¹ directions around the Bragg reflections. The activation energies for the conduction process are 0.40 eV for the sample quenched from 970 K and 0.54 eV for the one from 720 K. The higher the quenching temperature is, the higher the conductivity and the lower the activation energy become. The dependence of conductivity on the different cooling processes is more evident in single crystals than in polycrystalline samples. The contribution of the different cooling processes to ionic conductivity can be quantitatively explained by the extent of ordering of mobile fluorine ions. Time dependence of ionic conductivity has not been observed.