Topotactically transformable antiphase boundaries with enhanced ionic conductivity

Kun Xu; Shih-Wei Hung; Wenlong Si; Yongshun Wu; Chuanrui Huo; Pu Yu; Xiaoyan Zhong; Jing Zhu

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5

Topotactically transformable antiphase boundaries with enhanced ionic conductivity

Kun Xu^* (Co-first Author), Shih-Wei Hung (Co-first Author), Wenlong Si, Yongshun Wu, Chuanrui Huo, Pu Yu, Xiaoyan Zhong^*, Jing Zhu^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

47 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Engineering lattice defects have emerged as a promising approach to effectively modulate the functionality of devices. Particularly, antiphase boundaries (APBs) as planar defects have been considered major obstacles to optimizing the ionic conductivity of mixed ionic-electronic conductors (MIECs) in solid oxide fuel applications. Here our study identifies topotactically transformable APBs (tt-APBs) at the atomic level and demonstrates that they exhibit higher ionic conductivity at elevated temperatures as compared to perfect domains. In-situ observation at the atomic scale tracks dynamic oxygen migration across these tt-APBs, where the abundant interstitial sites between tetrahedrons facilitate the ionic migration. Furthermore, annealing in an oxidized atmosphere can lead to the formation of interstitial oxygen at these APBs. These pieces of evidence clearly clarify that the tt-APBs can contribute to oxygen conductivity as anion diffusion channels, while the topotactically non-transformable APBs cannot. The topotactic transformability opens the way of defect engineering strategies for improving ionic transportation in MIECs. © 2023, The Author(s).

Original language	English
Article number	7382
Number of pages	10
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	14
Online published	15 Nov 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5
Publication status	Published - 2023

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (Basic Science Center Project of NSFC under grant No. 52388201 (J.Z., P.Y.), 11834009 (J.Z.)), and supported by the Basic and Applied Basic Research Major Programme of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No. 2021B0301030003) (J.Z.), and Jihua Laboratory (Project No. X210141TL210) (J.Z.). This work made use of the resources of the National Center for Electron Microscopy in Beijing and the Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology. X.Y. Z is grateful for the financial supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China (52171014 (X.Y.Z.), 52011530124 (X.Y.Z.), 52025024 (P.Y.)), Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality (SGDX20210823104200001, JCYJ20210324134402007, HZQB-KCZYB-2020031) (X.Y.Z.), the Sino-German Mobility Programme by the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (M-0265) (X.Y.Z.), Innovation and Technology Fund (ITS/365/21) (X.Y.Z.), Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (2021YFSY0016) (X.Y.Z.), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. E-CityU101/20, CityU 11302121, CityU 11309822, G-CityU102/20) (X.Y.Z.), the European Research Council (Grant No. 856538, project “3D MAGiC”) (X.Y.Z.), CityU Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Grant (7020016, 7020043) (X.Y.Z.), the City University of Hong Kong (Projects no. 9610484, 9680291, 9678288, 9610607) (X.Y.Z.), the City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute and City University of Hong Kong Chengdu Research Institute. We thank Dr. Jinlian Lu and Dr. Xiang Chen for the fruitful discussions.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

RGC Funding Information

RGC-funded

Access Output

10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5

180198603.pdfFinal Published version, 3.15 MBLicence: CC BY

Other Access Options

Check CityUHK Library

Permanent Link

Right click to copy link

Cite this

@article{e6199459cd184cbfa4c84583ed6c5841,

title = "Topotactically transformable antiphase boundaries with enhanced ionic conductivity",

abstract = "Engineering lattice defects have emerged as a promising approach to effectively modulate the functionality of devices. Particularly, antiphase boundaries (APBs) as planar defects have been considered major obstacles to optimizing the ionic conductivity of mixed ionic-electronic conductors (MIECs) in solid oxide fuel applications. Here our study identifies topotactically transformable APBs (tt-APBs) at the atomic level and demonstrates that they exhibit higher ionic conductivity at elevated temperatures as compared to perfect domains. In-situ observation at the atomic scale tracks dynamic oxygen migration across these tt-APBs, where the abundant interstitial sites between tetrahedrons facilitate the ionic migration. Furthermore, annealing in an oxidized atmosphere can lead to the formation of interstitial oxygen at these APBs. These pieces of evidence clearly clarify that the tt-APBs can contribute to oxygen conductivity as anion diffusion channels, while the topotactically non-transformable APBs cannot. The topotactic transformability opens the way of defect engineering strategies for improving ionic transportation in MIECs. {\textcopyright} 2023, The Author(s).",

author = "Kun Xu and Shih-Wei Hung and Wenlong Si and Yongshun Wu and Chuanrui Huo and Pu Yu and Xiaoyan Zhong and Jing Zhu",

year = "2023",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5",

language = "English",

volume = "14",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Springer Nature",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Topotactically transformable antiphase boundaries with enhanced ionic conductivity

AU - Xu, Kun

AU - Hung, Shih-Wei

AU - Si, Wenlong

AU - Wu, Yongshun

AU - Huo, Chuanrui

AU - Yu, Pu

AU - Zhong, Xiaoyan

AU - Zhu, Jing

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Engineering lattice defects have emerged as a promising approach to effectively modulate the functionality of devices. Particularly, antiphase boundaries (APBs) as planar defects have been considered major obstacles to optimizing the ionic conductivity of mixed ionic-electronic conductors (MIECs) in solid oxide fuel applications. Here our study identifies topotactically transformable APBs (tt-APBs) at the atomic level and demonstrates that they exhibit higher ionic conductivity at elevated temperatures as compared to perfect domains. In-situ observation at the atomic scale tracks dynamic oxygen migration across these tt-APBs, where the abundant interstitial sites between tetrahedrons facilitate the ionic migration. Furthermore, annealing in an oxidized atmosphere can lead to the formation of interstitial oxygen at these APBs. These pieces of evidence clearly clarify that the tt-APBs can contribute to oxygen conductivity as anion diffusion channels, while the topotactically non-transformable APBs cannot. The topotactic transformability opens the way of defect engineering strategies for improving ionic transportation in MIECs. © 2023, The Author(s).

AB - Engineering lattice defects have emerged as a promising approach to effectively modulate the functionality of devices. Particularly, antiphase boundaries (APBs) as planar defects have been considered major obstacles to optimizing the ionic conductivity of mixed ionic-electronic conductors (MIECs) in solid oxide fuel applications. Here our study identifies topotactically transformable APBs (tt-APBs) at the atomic level and demonstrates that they exhibit higher ionic conductivity at elevated temperatures as compared to perfect domains. In-situ observation at the atomic scale tracks dynamic oxygen migration across these tt-APBs, where the abundant interstitial sites between tetrahedrons facilitate the ionic migration. Furthermore, annealing in an oxidized atmosphere can lead to the formation of interstitial oxygen at these APBs. These pieces of evidence clearly clarify that the tt-APBs can contribute to oxygen conductivity as anion diffusion channels, while the topotactically non-transformable APBs cannot. The topotactic transformability opens the way of defect engineering strategies for improving ionic transportation in MIECs. © 2023, The Author(s).

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85176557085&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85176557085&origin=recordpage

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5

DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-43086-5

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 37968326

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 14

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 7382

ER -

Topotactically transformable antiphase boundaries with enhanced ionic conductivity

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Publisher's Copyright Statement

RGC Funding Information

Access Output

Other Access Options

Permanent Link

Other Files and Links

Fingerprint

GRF: Atomic Scale Imaging of Magnetic Circular Dichroism in Collinear Antiferromagnets

Ger/HKJRS: Correlative Measurement of Magnetic Exchange Spring Coupling in Three Dimensions

EU_RGC: Three Dimensional Characterization of Magnetic Solitons by Electron Magnetic Dichroism

Cite this