Grain orientation effects on the ionic conductivity of neodymia doped ceria thin films

It is generally accepted that grain boundaries in the path of transport are detrimental to ionic conductivity. To delve deeper into the connection between grain boundaries and ionic transport, the relative orientations of the grains were determined using the transmission Kikuchi diffraction technique. Nanocrystalline (grain size ∼ 40 nm) neodymia doped ceria thin films grown via pulsed laser deposition amplify the effect of these intrinsic interfaces. In addition, this deposition technique allowed the growth of partially amorphous and columnar grained films. Further, the strength of the texture in the columnar grained films was modified by changing substrates. The in-plane impedance measurements were able to isolate the response of the film from the response of the electrode interface and confirmed the majority carriers were oxygen vacancies at low temperatures. The anionic conductivity improved as the strength of the texture in the films increased. The conductivity of the strongly textured films was 2 orders of magnitude higher than the conductivity of the randomly oriented ones between 300 and 400 °C. Also, the in-plane conductivity per grain was more than 3 orders of magnitude higher in the strongly textured film than in the poorly textured one indicating conductivity is not dependent on grain boundary density. IV measurements revealed that grain boundaries posed a potential barrier to anions in the poorly textured and randomly oriented films, but not in the strongly textured samples. The type of grain boundary was deemed a contributing factor. Boundaries between more misaligned grains were more resistive decreasing the total conductivity.

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