| Literature DB >> 31209215 |
Tomohide Morimoto1, Masaya Nagai2,3, Yosuke Minowa1, Masaaki Ashida4,5, Yoichiro Yokotani6, Yuji Okuyama7, Yukimune Kani8.
Abstract
Terahertz spectroscopy is one of the most suitable methods for the analysis of electron transport in solids, and has been applied to various materials. Here, we demonstrate that terahertz spectroscopy is the technique of choice to characterize solid electrolytes. We measure the terahertz conductivity of stabilized zirconia, a widely used solid electrolyte material, by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy at high temperatures, providing a wealth of information unavailable from conventional techniques. It is found that the conductivity reflects the microscopic motion of the ion just before hopping to an unoccupied site. Our results suggest a powerful approach in probing the ionic conduction mechanism and could help us explore other solid electrolytes for fuel cells and all-solid-state batteries.Entities:
Year: 2019 PMID: 31209215 PMCID: PMC6572842 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10501-9
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nat Commun ISSN: 2041-1723 Impact factor: 14.919
Fig. 1Schematics of electronic and ionic transport. a Potential for the electron near a donor atom in a semiconductor. b Corresponding conductivity spectra at low (blue) and high temperatures (red). The frequency component of the electronic conductivity at high temperature extends to the THz regime. The shaded area shows the sub-THz frequency region. c Potential for the oxygen vacancy near a dopant atom in an oxide ion conductor. d Corresponding conductivity spectra at low (blue) and high temperatures (red). The broadening of the vacancy mode towards low frequencies at high temperatures provides information on the individual ion hopping (orange shaded region), which is different from the information obtained in long-range ion transport measurements for low-frequency conductivity (blue shaded region)
Fig. 2THz time-domain spectroscopy for an 8YSZ pellet. a Crystal structure of 8YSZ. b The time profile of the reference THz pulse that is obtained without sample. c The time profiles of the THz pulses that have passed through the 370 μm-thick 8YSZ pellet at different temperatures. This data set is offset for clarity
Fig. 3THz conductivities of 8YSZ and 3YSZ. a The real parts of the optical conductivities of 8YSZ and b those of 3YSZ at different temperatures. The dashed lines represent the linear and quadratic dependences for reference
Fig. 4Temperature dependence of the THz conductivity in 8YSZ. a Red closed circles represent the temperature dependence of the THz conductivity in 8YSZ at 0.36 THz. Blue closed circles show the conventionally measured low-frequency conductivity in 8YSZ. The solid lines are the fitting results obtained using the Arrhenius equation. b The data points show the activation energy evaluated from the THz conductivity of 8YSZ at different frequencies. The solid smoothing curve is a guide to the eye
Fig. 5THz ion motions in the Morse potential. a The simplified potential shape and energy levels for the localized vacancy mode with and . b The populations of the energy levels are shown in black and red for 300 and 1200 K, respectively. c The calculated conductivity spectra for the localized vacancy mode. d The Arrhenius plot for the calculated THz conductivity at 0.36 THz
Fig. 6The activation energies for stabilized zirconia samples with different dopant ions. a The low-frequency activation energy obtained by impedance measurements. b The activation energy in the THz regime obtained by THz-TDS