Thin Film Growth Effects on Electrical Conductivity in Entropy Stabilized Oxides

Valerie Jacobson, David Diercks, Bobby To, Andriy Zakutayev, Geoff Brennecka

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Entropy stabilization has garnered significant attention as a new approach to designing novel materials. Much of the work in this area has focused on bulk ceramic processing, leaving entropy-stabilized thin films relatively under-explored. Following an extensive multi-variable investigation of polycrystalline (Mg0.2Co0.2Ni0.2Cu0.2Zn0.2)O thin films deposited via pulsed laser deposition (PLD), it is shown here that substrate temperature and deposition pressure have strong and repeatable effects on film texture and lattice parameter. Further analysis shows that films deposited at lower temperatures and under lower oxygen chamber pressure are ∼40× less electrically resistive than otherwise identical films grown at higher temperature and pressure. Annealing these films in an oxygen-rich environment increases their electrical resistivity to match that of the films grown at higher temperatures and pressures. Because of this, the electric conductivity is hypothesized to be the result of polaron hopping mediated by transition metal valence changes which compensate for oxygen off-stoichiometry.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)2617-2624
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of the European Ceramic Society
Volume41
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-78438

Keywords

  • Electrical Conductivity
  • Entropy
  • Oxide
  • Phase
  • Thin film

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