Evidence of secondary relaxations in the dielectric spectra of ionic liquids

We investigated the dynamics of a series of room temperature ionic liquids based on the same 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium cation and different anions by means of broadband dielectric spectroscopy covering 15 decades in frequency (10-10Hz), and in the temperature range from 400 K down to 35 K. An ionic conductivity is observed above the glass transition temperature Tg with a relaxation in the electric modulus representation. Below Tg , two relaxation processes appear, with the same features as the secondary relaxations typically observed in molecular glasses. The activation energy of the secondary processes and their dependence on the anion are different. The slower process shows the characteristics of an intrinsic Johari-Goldstein relaxation, in particular an activation energy Eβ=24kBT g is found, as observed in molecular glasses.