Interplay between the local structural disorder and the length of structural coherence in stabilizing the cubic phase in nanocrystalline ZrO2

The atomic-scale structure of three nanocrystalline ZrO2 samples obtained by different techniques and possessing a different length of structural coherence has been studied using high-energy X-ray diffraction and the atomic pair distribution function technique. The studies reveal that all samples show a monoclinic-like local atomic ordering. Only when the length of structural coherence exceeds 1 nm the atomic arrangement evolves into a cubic-type one. The result underlines the importance of both the local structural disorder and the length of structural coherence, i.e. the spatial extent of longer-range atomic order, in stabilizing the technologically important cubic zirconia at room temperature.