Dielectric relaxation in monoclinic hydroxyapatite: Observation of hydroxide ion dipoles

We prepared monoclinic hydroxyapatite (HAp) ceramics and measured their dielectric properties. The dielectric dispersion that was observed in the monoclinic HAp consisted of two different relaxations and could be expressed by a summation of two Debye-like relaxations. One relaxation was ascribed to the reorientational motions of OH− ions. The temperature dependence of the relaxation time obeyed the Arrhenius equation. The relaxation time decreased with temperature but decreased discontinuously at 483 K, the monoclinic-hexagonal phase transition temperature of HAp. Correspondingly, the activation energy changed from 0.74 eV for the monoclinic phase to 0.43 eV for the hexagonal phase. The results suggest that the mobility of the OH− ions increases discontinuously with the phase transition to hexagonal HAp. However, critical phenomena, such as critical slowing down, were not observed.