The properties of gadolinium doped cerium oxide thin films formed evaporating nanopowder ceramic

Abstract

Ceria-based thin films are potential materials for use as electrolytes in micro-solid oxide fuel cells. In this study GDC thin ceramic films were deposited by e-beam evaporation of Gd0.10Ce0.9O2 nano powder (particle size 5 ÷10 nm) and the influence of the deposition rate on formed thin films electrical and microstructure properties were studied. The electrical conductivity of nanocrystalline thin ceramics film has been studied as a function of temperature and correlated with microstructure. It was determined that the deposition rate has influence on crystallite size and crystallite size changes from 7.2 to 8.8 nm at different deposition rate. The XRD measurements show that the formed GDC thin films have cubic structure at all deposition rates.