The
tetragonal ordered form of BaSnF4 is of particular
interest, as its ionic conductivity is high enough to enable its uses
as an electrolyte in all-solid-state fluoride-ion batteries. Despite
several studies related to its synthesis, structure, and fluoride-ion
diffusion mechanism, reported routes often yield impurities as well
as unexplained variation in the unit-cell c-axis
length. Here, we report on the single-phase synthesis of t-BaSnF4 via spark plasma sintering, a method that could
be used to prepare bulk-type all-solid-state inorganic batteries in
one step. By optimizing different parameters (temperature, setup features,
etc.), we reached a high ionic conductivity of 5 × 10–3 S·cm–1 at 30 °C. In addition, we show
that two main factors affect the ionic conductivity. First, on a microstructural
scale, the preferential growth of crystallites along the c-axis results in a decrease of the ionic conductivity of resulting
powders because of the two-dimensional (2D) fluoride-ion diffusion
in this material. Second, on the atomic scale, the increase of the
unit-cell c-axis length is concomitant with a decrease
of the ionic conductivity. A combined neutron diffraction and 19F solid-state magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR study reveals
that the observed increase of the unit-cell c-axis
length is due to the partial occupancy of octahedral interstitial
sites. NMR allows us to identify these interstitial sites (the F4
site) with distinct isotropic chemical shift values. Furthermore,
variable-temperature 19F solid-state MAS NMR reveals that
these F4-ions do not exchange with fluoride-ions (F1 and F3) that
are responsible for the transport properties. Hence, the occupancy
of these interstitial sites tends to lower the 2D fluoride-ion conductivity,
and the unit-cell c-axis length can be used as a
guideline to ensure the preparation of highly conductive samples provided
that the microstructure is controlled. Overall, this study provides
a novel route to prepare pure t-BaSnF4 while establishing a better understanding of the factors affecting
its transport properties.