Publication date: 10th April 2024
This research focuses on the interplay between the processing conditions, structure, transport, and proton surface exchange kinetics, of vertically aligned nanocomposites (VANs), targeting protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs). The VANs consist of a proton conductor (BaZr0.9Y0.1O3-δ, BZY) as the first phase and a mixed p-type/ oxide-ion conductor (Ce0.9Pr0.1O2-δ, PCO) as the second phase. By separating the proton-conducting and p-type mixed conducting phases for task sharing, the BZY-PCO VANs possess the potential for rapid proton surface exchange at the solid-gas interface and transport along the solid-solid heterointerfaces.
These VAN thin films were deposited on MgO (100) substrates with pulsed laser deposition (PLD) under different conditions. Owing to the small lattice mismatch between MgO and BZY, along with the different crystal structures of perovskite BZY and fluorite PCO, it is expected that this combination can lead to vertically aligned phase-separated structures. To optimize the PLD recipe for high-quality VANs, we varied the substrate temperature, laser repetition rate, laser power, and processing oxygen pressure. The crystallinity and phases were characterized by grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GI-XRD), and the structural analysis and elemental mapping were performed by scanning/transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). Additional characterization of strain and structural order as a function of depth was enabled by angle-dependent synchrotron X-ray pair distribution function (PDF) analysis.
Furthermore, proton surface exchange kinetics of VANs were evaluated by simultaneous electrical conductivity relaxation (ECR) and optical transmission relaxation (OTR) measurements. This research reveals how processing conditions influence mesostructural ordering in VANs, heterointerface chemistry, and the kinetics of proton surface exchange.
This work was supported as part of the Hydrogen in Energy and Information Sciences (HEISs) center (DE-SC0023450), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. This work made use of the X-Ray Analysis, Surface Analysis, and Electron Microscopy Research Cores at the Materials Research Laboratory Central Research Facilities, University of Illinois. Facilities and instrumentation were supported by I-MRSEC through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. This work also made use of the EPIC facility of Northwestern University's NUANCE Center, which has received support from the SHyNE Resource (NSF ECCS-2025633), the IIN, and Northwestern's MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1720139). We acknowledge DESY (Hamburg, Germany), a member of the Helmholtz Association HGF, for the provision of experimental facilities. Parts of this research were carried out at PETRA III and we would like to thank Ann-Christin Dippel and Fernando Igoa Saldana for assistance in using P21.1. Beamtime was allocated for proposalI-20230646.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.