Enhancement of high dielectric permittivity in CaCu3Ti4O12/RuO2 composites in the vicinity of the percolation threshold

We observe the large enhancement in the dielectric permittivity near the percolation threshold in a composite nanoparticle system consisting of metallic RuO2 grains embedded into CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) matrix and annealed at 1100 °C. To understand the nature of the dielectric response, we prepared CCTO by using standard solid state and sol-gel processes, with the relative permittivity found to be on the order of 103–104 at 10 kHz. For RuO2/CCTO composites, an increase in the real part of the dielectric permittivity by approximately an order of magnitude is observed in the vicinity of the percolation threshold, with moderate losses at room temperature. The critical exponent of dielectric permittivity and conductivity of these composites are lower than universal value (0.8–1). In these composite systems, both Maxwell-Wagner and percolation effects have been found responsible for the enhancement of dielectric permittivity.