Guided anisotropic oxygen transport in vacancy ordered oxides

Abstract

Anisotropic and efficient transport of ions under external stimuli governs the operation and failure mechanisms of energy-conversion systems and microelectronics devices. However, fundamental understanding of ion hopping processes is impeded by the lack of atomically precise materials and probes that allow for the monitoring and control at the appropriate time- and length- scales. In this work, using in-situ transmission electron microscopy, we directly show that oxygen ion migration in vacancy ordered, semiconducting SrFeO_2.5 epitaxial thin films can be guided to proceed through two distinctly different diffusion pathways, each resulting in different polymorphs of SrFeO_2.75 with different ground electronic properties before reaching a fully oxidized, metallic SrFeO₃ phase. The diffusion steps and reaction intermediates are revealed by means of ab-initio calculations. The principles of controlling oxygen diffusion pathways and reaction intermediates demonstrated here may advance the rational design of structurally ordered oxides for tailored applications and provide insights for developing devices with multiple states of regulation.

Control of ion diffusion is instrumental in understanding the behavior and structural transformations of transition metal oxides. Here, the authors use in-situ TEM to reveal the atomic-scale evolution of the topotactic phase transition in BM-SFO triggered by the migration of oxygen ions under an external stimulus.