Variability and origins of grain boundary electric potential detected by electron holography and atom-probe tomography

A number of grain boundary phenomena in ionic materials, in particular, anomalous (either depressed or enhanced) charge transport, have been attributed to space charge effects. Developing effective strategies to manipulate transport behaviour requires deep knowledge of the origins of the interfacial...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature materials 2020-08, Vol.19 (8), p.887-893
Main Authors: Xu, Xin, Liu, Yuzi, Wang, Jie, Isheim, Dieter, Dravid, Vinayak P., Phatak, Charudatta, Haile, Sossina M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301
639/766
Biomaterials
Boundaries
Cerium oxides
Charge transport
Chemistry and Materials Science
Condensed Matter Physics
Electric potential
Grain boundaries
Holography
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Optical and Electronic Materials
Origins
Purity
Space charge
Tomography
Trace impurities
Transport phenomena
Transport properties
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Summary:A number of grain boundary phenomena in ionic materials, in particular, anomalous (either depressed or enhanced) charge transport, have been attributed to space charge effects. Developing effective strategies to manipulate transport behaviour requires deep knowledge of the origins of the interfacial charge, as well as its variability within a polycrystalline sample with millions of unique grain boundaries. Electron holography is a powerful technique uniquely suited for studying the electric potential profile at individual grain boundaries, whereas atom-probe tomography provides access to the chemical identify of essentially every atom at individual grain boundaries. Using these two techniques, we show here that the space charge potential at grain boundaries in lightly doped, high-purity ceria can vary by almost an order of magnitude. We further find that trace impurities (
ISSN:1476-1122
1476-4660
DOI:10.1038/s41563-020-0656-1