Mallesham Bandi¹, Ron Broner², Samuel Arredondo¹, Ramana Chintalapalle¹; ¹University of Texas at El Paso, ²University of California, Santa Barbara

Phosphate based materials are extensively studied in recent years due to their fascinating physical properties and potential technological applications including; solid state lasers, electrochemical energy devices, catalysis, luminescence. In this work, we report on the structural, optical and dielectric properties of a novel material, LiGaP2O7, synthesized using conventional solid-state chemical reaction. Calcination of sample was carried at different temperatures with intermediate grinding. X-ray diffraction of calcined sample confirms that sample calcined at 650 °C for 8 h exhibits phase purity without any secondary phases. The physical, chemical and electronic property analyses made and results obtained are compared with well-studied LiFeP2O7, which is an excellent candidate for lithium ion batteries. Finally, we made an attempt to establish a correlation between crystal structure, phase, microstructure, optical and electrical properties of LiGaP2O7.