Microstructural study of thin films of 5 mol% gadolinia-doped ceria prepared by pulsed laser ablation

Abstract

Microstructural characterization of thin films of 5 mol% gadolinia-doped ceria films deposited by pulsed laser ablation in the energy range 100-600 mJ/pulse has been investigated. As-deposited films were found to be nanocrystalline with preferred orientation. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that the size of the nanocrystals of doped ceria does not vary significantly with increasing laser energy, while transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study showed a uniform distribution of nanocrystals of 8-10 nm for energies ≤200 mJ/pulse and nanocrystals embedded in a large crystalline matrix of doped ceria for energies in the range 400-600 mJ/pulse. Though, the laserablated films were totally free from secondary phases, lattice imaging of the large grained doped ceria showed growth-induced defects such as dislocations and ledges.

Microstructural studies of bulk and thin film GDC

“…Our recent observation of GDC thin films using high-resolution electron microscopy also reveal defects like dislocations, ledges, bending of lattices, etc. for the films grown with laser energy exceeding 300 mJ/pulse [14] in agreement with the Raman spectra. The present study qualitatively suggests that substrate temperature and laser energy significantly influences the microstructure of the films, and appropriate selections of the process parameters are required to achieve GDC films with desired properties for technological applications.…”

“…The thickness and the deposition rate were found to increase significantly with laser energy. For instance, the deposition rate has increased from 0.02 nm/s at 200 mJ/pulse to 0.2 nm/s at 600 mJ/pulse; this was explained in our earlier studies [14]. Figure 6a shows the XRD pattern of GDC films grown at various energy levels on silicon substrate.…”

Electrical Conductivity of NiO-Gadolinia Doped Ceria Anode Material for Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

“…The enhanced conductivity is attributed due to the formation of oxygen defect (V o ‫)״‬ in the ceria lattice by the introduction of aliovalent dopants [34]. Among the various trivalent dopants, Gd 3+ ion has found increased ionic conductivity at doping level of 5-30 mol% with ceria [35][36][37][38][39]. Therefore the combination of NiO-GDC composite would serve the purpose of fabrication of anode or anode precursor material for IT-SOFC.…”