Abstract
Conventionally, the addition of sesquioxide cation dopants to ceria has been thought of as a class of almost model systems. The most important defect mechanism involves simple anion vacancy charge compensation with those vacancy defects associating themselves with the trivalent cation and being distributed randomly through the lattice. However, this simple model has been significantly challenged in recent years and it seems possible that these associated defects might cluster in ordered arrangements. Whilst evidence has been provided by theoretical work, only limited experimental data are available. This letter reports the first observation of local ordering in these systems as observed by careful powder x-ray diffraction studies. In detail, it is shown that measurements of the lattice parameter do not vary monotonically with dopant concentration. It is also shown that far from being ideal systems with very high dopant solubilities and true solid-state solutions, these systems have complex solubility.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | L49-L58 |
Journal | Journal of Physics Condensed Matter |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 22 Jan 2003 |
Externally published | Yes |