• Laukaitis, Giedrius
• Milčius, Darius
• Minialga, Virgilijus
• Dudonis, Julius
• Burinskas, Saulius
• Adomonis, Vytautas

Abstract

Gadolinium doped cerium oxide (GDC) thin films are intensively investigated for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) application as a solid electrolyte layer. Classical methods that are used for synthesis of doped oxide materials are based on high temperature diffusion and solid state reactions of powder-form oxide mixtures. It is usually difficult to fabricate a thin GDC electrolyte film with a dense structure by a classical sintering technique, therefore this work was dedicated to a novel synthesis technique based on the sintering of Gd2O3/CeO2 multilayers deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering. The main purpose of the present investigation is to receive more information about the possibility to mix thin films of Gd2O3/CeO2 at intermediate temperatures (500–800 °C) in a relatively short period of time (1 h). Cross-section morphology of the samples was investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Crystal structure and oxide stoichiometry was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The results revealed that crystallite size growth and layer mixing depends not only on sintering temperature, but also on bilayer period.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• scanning electron microscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• thin film
• reactive
• Raman spectroscopy
• Gadolinium
• sintering
• Cerium