Novel approach to the analysis of broadband dielectric spectra

Broadband dielectric spectra are usually fitted to a superposition of contributions from one or several parametrized processes (Debye, Havriliak-Negami, etc.). This work proposes instead to extract continuous distributions of relaxation times from complex dielectric spectra by solving a Fredholm integral equation using the Tikhonov regularization technique with a self-consistent choice of the regularization parameter. This method is stable with respect to the noise and resolves multiple dynamical processes. An experimental example of salol adsorbed on microporous glass is analyzed.