Numerical differentiation methods for the logarithmic derivative technique used in dielectric spectroscopy

In dielectric relaxation spectroscopy the conduction contribution often hampers the evaluation of dielectric spectra, especially in the low-frequency regime. In order to overcome this the logarithmic derivative technique could be used, where the calculation of the logarithmic derivative of the real part of the complex permittivity function is needed. Since broadband dielectric measurement provides discrete permittivity function, numerical differentiation has to be used. Applicability of the Savitzky-Golay convolution method in the derivative analysis is examined, and a detailed investigation of the influential parameters (frequency, spectrum resolution, peak shape) is presented on synthetic dielectric data.