Nanonionics and interfaces for energy and information technologies

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the development of functional metal oxides with mixed ionic electronic conduction for their application in different strategic fields. In particular, ionic transport-related phenomena are of primary importance in energy transformation and storage devices, such as solid oxides fuel cells (SOFC) or batteries. Traditionally, the main issue that hindered a wide spread of solid state electrochemical devices is the slow ionic conduction and the reduced number of families of materials with pure ionic conductivity able to play the role of the electrolyte. This is due to the low mobility of the ionic charge carriers and their mechanical and coulombic interactions with their host crystal structures. For relatively big and charged ions, e.g. O2- or Na+, the low ionic conductivity imposes operating at high temperatures, which is incompatible with some applications such as portable electronics.