The structures a
nd electrical properties of four NASICONcompositio
ns,Na
1.4M
1.6I
n0.4(PO
4)
3 (M = Ti, S
n, Hf, Zr), have bee
ndetermi
ned a
nd compared. Rietveld refi
neme
nt ofpowder X-ray diffractio
n data co
nfirmed the basic rhombohedral NASICONstructure withra
ndom occupa
ncy of the octahedral I
n/M sites, full occupa
ncy of theNa(1) sites a
nd partialoccupa
ncy of the Na(2) sites. For three compositio
ns, M =Zr, S
n, a
nd Hf, the
31P MASNMR peak i
nte
nsities of the four detected sig
nals, attributed to fourdiffere
nt phosphoruse
nviro
nme
nts[P(OM)
4-n(OI
n)
n(
n = 0-3)], were close to the ratios expected for ara
ndomdistributio
n of I
n/M. For M = Ti, some departures fromstatistical occupa
ncy were appare
nt.
23Na MAS NMR data gave evide
nce for twoNa
+ positio
ns at room temperature for M =Ti,S
n, attributable to occupatio
n of Na(1) a
nd Na(2) sites.For M = Hf, Zr, o
nly a si
ngle sig
nalcould be resolved at room temperature, which splits i
nto two sig
nals o
ncooli
ng to - 50
ntities/deg.gif">C,i
ndicati
ng high Na mobility at room temperature. Impeda
nce dataobtai
ned o
n pressedsi
ntered pellets over the ra
nge 25-300
ntities/deg.gif">C showed that bulk io
nicco
nductivities i
ncreaseda
nd activatio
n e
nergies decreased i
n the seque
nce Ti, S
n, Hf, Zr.The geometry of the M1M2bottle
neck has bee
n determi
ned from structural data, a
nd a directcorrelatio
n fou
nd betwee
nactivatio
n e
nergy for io
n co
nductio
n a
nd the bottle
necksize.