Macroscopic visualization of fast electrochemical reaction of SrCoOx oxygen sponge

TL;DR

This study visualizes the macroscopic electrochemical oxidation process of SrCoOx, revealing how oxidation propagates in epitaxial films, which is crucial for developing devices based on its redox properties.

Contribution

It provides the first macroscopic visualization of SrCoOx electrochemical oxidation, linking microscopic phenomena to observable surface changes.

Findings

Oxidation propagates along the surface normal initially.

Resistivity and thermopower decrease sharply upon oxidation.

Conductive AFM images confirm columnar oxidation pattern.

Abstract

Strontium cobaltite (SrCoOx) is known as a material showing fast topotactic electrochemical Redox reaction so-called oxygen sponge. Although atomic scale phenomenon of the oxidation of SrCoO2.5 into SrCoO3 is known, the macroscopic phenomenon has not been clarified yet thus far. Here, we visualize the electrochemical oxidation of SrCoOx macroscopically. SrCoOx epitaxial films with various oxidation states were prepared by the electrochemical oxidation of SrCoO2.5 film into SrCoO3-d film. Steep decrease of both resistivity and the absolute value of thermopower of electrochemically oxidized SrCoOx epitaxial films indicated the columnar oxidation firstly occurred along with the surface normal and then spread in the perpendicular to the normal. Further, we directly visualized the phenomena using the conductive AFM. This macroscopic image of the electrochemical oxidation would be useful to develop a functional device utilizing the electrochemical redox reaction of SrCoOx.