Cubic
Li
7
La
3
Zr
2
O
12
(LLZO),
stabilized by supervalent cations, is one of the most promising oxide
electrolyte to realize inherently safe all-solid-state batteries.
It is of great interest to evaluate the strategy of supervalent stabilization
in similar compounds and to describe its effect on ionic bulk conductivity
σ′
bulk
. Here, we synthesized solid solutions
of Li
7–
x
La
3
M
2–
x
Ta
x
O
12
with
M = Hf, Sn over the full compositional range (
x
=
0, 0.25...2). It turned out that Ta contents at
x
of 0.25 (M = Hf, LLHTO) and 0.5 (M = Sn, LLSTO) are necessary to
yield phase pure cubic Li
7–
x
La
3
M
2–
x
Ta
x
O
12
. The maximum in total conductivity for LLHTO
(2 × 10
–4
S cm
–1
) is achieved
for
x
= 1.0; the associated activation energy is
0.46 eV. At
x
= 0.5 and
x
= 1.0,
we observe two conductivity anomalies that are qualitatively in agreement
with the rule of Meyer and Neldel. For LLSTO, at
x
= 0.75 the conductivity σ′
bulk
turned out
to be 7.94 × 10
–5
S cm
–1
(0.46
eV); the almost monotonic decrease of ion bulk conductivity from
x
= 0.75 to
x
= 2 in this series is in
line with Meyer–Neldel’s compensation behavior showing
that a decrease in
E
a
is accompanied by
a decrease of the Arrhenius prefactor. Altogether, the system might
serve as an attractive alternative to Al-stabilized (or Ga-stabilized)
Li
7
La
3
Zr
2
O
12
as LLHTO
is also anticipated to be highly stable against Li metal.