Out-of-plane electrochemical transport in all-thin-film hetero-epitaxial solid oxide fuel cell structures

Published

June 6, 2025

Author(s)

Huairuo Zhang, Albert Davydov, Yangang Liang, Xiaohang Zhang, Yaoyu Ren, Seunghun Lee, H.M. Jaim, Eric Marksz, Takeuchi Ichiro, Haiyan Tan, Leonid Bendersky, Chris Kucharczyk, Ruiyun Huang, Sossina Haile

Abstract

We have fabricated all-thin-film solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) heterostructures and investigated the transport properties of Sm0.2Ce0.8O2-δ (SDC20) in an out-of-plane measurement geometry. The SOFC heterostructures, consisting of a bottom SrRuO3 (SRO) or Ba0.93La0.07SnO3 (BLSO) electrode and a SDC20 electrolyte, were fabricated on SrTiO3 (001) substrates via pulsed laser deposition. The hetero-epitaxial nature and atomically sharp interfaces between the electrolyte and the electrode were confirmed by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Out-of-plane electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements indicate that the electrochemical properties of the SDC20 thin films are quantitatively consistent with that of bulk SDC20 in a wide temperature range from 350 °C to 550 °C. Our results demonstrate that prototypical out-of-plane hetero-epitaxial devices can serve as an ideal platform for direct investigation of the intrinsic transport properties of electrochemical materials in single-crystal-like structures with well-defined interfaces. In addition, by using perovskite conducting films as bottom electrodes, the overall thickness of the hetero-epitaxial devices is further reduced.

Citation

AIP Advances

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

hetero-epitaxial films, solid oxide fuel cell, electrochemical device, out-of-plane measurement, microelectrode, samarium doped ceria, strontium ruthenium oxide

Citation

Zhang, H. , Davydov, A. , Liang, Y. , Zhang, X. , Ren, Y. , Lee, S. , Jaim, H. , Marksz, E. , Ichiro, T. , Tan, H. , Bendersky, L. , Kucharczyk, C. , Huang, R. and Haile, S. (2025), Out-of-plane electrochemical transport in all-thin-film hetero-epitaxial solid oxide fuel cell structures, AIP Advances, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959758 (Accessed October 14, 2025)