Negative permittivity of materials can be obtained by
plasma oscillation
or dielectric resonance, but the relationship between these two negative
permittivity behaviors has been neglected. Combining the advantages
of two negative permittivity behaviors, the negative permittivity
can be more tunable and is expected to realize epsilon-near-zero behavior.
In this work, percolative bismuth ferrite/silver composites with different
contents of Ag were successfully fabricated by a simple solid-state
sintering method. With the addition of Ag, the Lorentz-like and Drude-like
negative permittivity behaviors were successively observed in bismuth
ferrite/silver composites. The reasons for the two types of negative
permittivity behaviors are dielectric resonance and plasma oscillation,
respectively. Further investigation revealed that the synergistic
effect of dipole resonance and free electrons led to a change of resonance
frequency, a decrease of magnitude, and a transition of two negative
permittivity behaviors. Moreover, with the addition of Ag in percolative
bismuth ferrite/silver composites, the electrical conductivity and
thermal conductivity changed abruptly at a certain volume fraction,
suggesting a percolation behavior.