High-Temperature Energy Materials Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2011 Apr 7;13(13):6133-7. doi: 10.1039/c0cp02673e. Epub 2011 Feb 24.
The nano-size effect, which indicates a drastic increase in conductivity in solid electrolyte materials of nano-scale microstructures, has drawn substantial attention in various research fields including in the field of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). However, especially in the cases of the conductivity of ultra-thin films measured in an in-plane configuration, it is highly possible that the 'apparent' conductivity increase originates from electrical current flowing through other conduction paths than the thin film. As a systematic study to interrogate those measurement artifacts, we report various sources of electrical current leaks regarding in-plane conductivity measurements, specifically insulators in the measurement set-up. We have observed a 'great conductivity increase' up to an order of magnitude at a very thin thickness of a single layer yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) film in a set-up with an intentional artifact current flow source. Here we propose that the nano-size effect, reported to appear in ultra-thin single layer YSZ, can be a result of misinterpretation.
纳米尺寸效应表明，纳米结构的固体电解质材料的电导率会大幅增加，这在包括固体氧化物燃料电池（SOFC）在内的各个研究领域都引起了广泛关注。然而，特别是在平面配置下测量的超薄薄膜的电导率的情况下，很有可能“明显”的电导率增加源于电流通过薄膜以外的其他传导路径。作为一项系统研究以探究这些测量伪影的工作，我们报告了关于平面电导率测量的各种电流泄漏源，特别是测量设置中的绝缘体。我们在一个有意引入电流泄漏源的设置中观察到，在非常薄的单层氧化钇稳定氧化锆（YSZ）薄膜中，电导率会“大幅增加”，甚至达到一个数量级。在这里，我们提出在超薄的单层 YSZ 中报告的纳米尺寸效应可能是由于误解造成的。
