Electro-Chemo-Mechanical Properties in Nanostructured Ca-doped Ceria (CDC) by Field Assisted Sintering

TL;DR

This paper investigates how field-assisted sintering affects the electro-chemo-mechanical properties of Ca-doped ceria, revealing significant electromechanical strain linked to calcium-oxygen vacancy interactions in nanostructured ceramics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that rapid sintering produces nanostructured CDC with enhanced electromechanical properties driven by defect interactions, a novel insight into material design.

Findings

Nanostructured CDC exhibits large electromechanical strain.

Electromechanical activity depends on Ca-VO interactions.

Crystalline boundary disorder has minimal impact.

Abstract

Recent investigations have shown that highly oxygen defective cerium oxides generate non-classical electrostriction that is superior to lead-based ferroelectrics. In this work, we report the effect of field-assisted spark plasma sintering (SPS) on electro-chemo-mechanical properties on Ca-doped ceria (CDC). Nanometric powders of ca. 10 nm are rapidly consolidated to form polycrystalline nanostructures with a high degree of crystalline disorder. Remarkably, the resultant material demonstrates a large electromechanical strain without a frequency-related relaxation effect. We conclude that electromechanical activity in CDC materials strictly depends on the Ca-VO interaction, while disorder at the crystalline boundaries has a minor effect.