Abstract. This paper presents a formal analysis of the transport processes in yttria-doped zirconia under a temperature gradient. Due to the simultaneous diffusion and drift of the species when the material is exposed to a thermodynamical potential gradient, a kinetic demixing process appears on the cationic sublattice if the diffusion coefficients of the cations are different. Experimental results obtained with yttria-doped zirconia are discussed on the basis of this analysis. They confirm that kinetic demixing processes during cooling must be taken into account in the interpretation of the grain boundary conductivity of doped zirconia.
IntroductionXPS analysis [1] shows a near surface enrichment of silicon and yttrium in yttria-doped zirconia lower in air quenched materials than in samples cooled at 25 K/h. These observations are consistent with those of Aoki et al. [2], for calcium and silicon in calcium-doped zirconia. However, while Aoki et al. suggest that these cation redistributions are likely confined to a layer near the interfaces close or lower than 5 nm, we have observed that the segregation layer thickness is higher than the depth of the space charge region and depends on the cooling rate of the sample after sintering, indicating that cation redistributions occur during cooling. The purpose of this paper is then to provide an analysis of the kinetic demixing phenomena in oxide solid electrolytes, in order to be able to control such effects in materials in which the minority defects are present on the cationic sublattice.