Structure of the Equilibrated Ni(111)‐YSZ(111) Solid–Solid Interface

Abstract

Solid‐state dewetting of continuous Ni films deposited on the (111) surface of yttrium‐stabilized zirconia (YSZ) was used to produce equilibrated Ni particles, and the solid–solid interface structure was determined using aberration‐corrected transmission electron microscopy. The ~150 nm thick Ni films were annealed at 1350°C in Ar + H2 (99.9999%) at a partial pressure of oxygen of 10−20 atm for 6 h. Transmission electron microscopy of equilibrated particles, which was conducted to analyze the structure at the interface, revealed that despite the 31% lattice mismatch between Ni and YSZ, the interface is semicoherent and a two‐dimensional network of misfit dislocations was identified.

Structure and Oxidation Behavior of Nickel Nanoparticles Supported by YSZ(111)

“…The OR1 found here has been reported before for a variety of different growth methods of Ni on YSZ(111), like pulsed laser deposition 18 and MBE. 19 Because this OR results from a simple cube-on-cube stacking and most likely is energetically favorable, it has also been found for the Ni-YSZ(100) interface grown by directional solidification. 20 , 21 These studies also report on other ORs, but not on the OR2 found by our X-ray diffraction study.…”

Ni‐YSZ(001) solid‐solid interfacial energy and orientation relationships

“…The interface energy values measured for the Ni‐YSZ(001) interfaces are higher than the 1.8 ± 0.1 J/m 2 and 2.0 ± 0.1 J/m 2 measured for the solid‐solid Ni(111)‐YSZ(111) cube‐on‐cube and twinned ORs, respectively . The difference in energies between the Ni(111)‐YSZ(001) and the Ni(111)‐YSZ(111) interfaces may originate in the possible change in the details of the atomic bonding at the interface (i.e., density and directions), and from the different stabilities of the YSZ surface planes. This issue is reflected in the different surface energies calculated for (111) and (001)YSZ by Lallet et al .…”

Matching crystal structures atom-to-atom

“…6(a) shows the interface viewed in the [111] projection (from above). The algorithm finds a repeating pattern of only a few unit cells in sharp contrast with the 33 × 33 unit cells O-lattice found using the measured orientation relationship [48]. This smaller cell has the advantage of directly providing the matching modes of the interfaces: 2:3 Zr-Ni which is in accordance with the "one dislocation every three Ni planes" observed by Nahor et al This smaller cell is possible because the optimal result was found by allowing some strain in the interface layers.…”

“…The first system is a solid-solid interface between Ni and yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). This interface was experimentally realized and studied by Nahor et al [48]. We used the parameters from their experiment to run our simulation.…”

“…both structures and used the termination (Zr for ZrO 2 ) specified in Ref. [48]. We set the equilibrium point of the Lennard-Jones potential r to be 2.5 Å, because it is close to the Ni-Ni interatomic distance of 2.49 Å.…”