Self-assembled nanoislands in the gadolinia-doped ceria (GDC)/ yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) system have recently been discovered. This dissertation is an attempt to study the mechanism by which these nanoislands form. Nanoislands in the GDC/YSZ system form via a strain based mechanism whereby the stress accumulated in the GDC-doped surface layer on the YSZ substrate is relieved by creation of self-assembled nanoislands by a mechanism similar to the ATG instability. Unlike what was previously believed, a modified surface layer is not required prior to annealing, that is, this modification can occur during annealing by surface diffusion of dopants from the GDC sources (distributed on the YSZ surface in either lithographically defined patch or powder form) with simultaneous breakup, which occurs at the hold temperature independent of the subsequent cooling. Additionally, we have developed a simple powder based process of producing nanoislands which bypasses lithography and thin film deposition setups. The versatility of the process is apparent in the fact that it allows us to study the effect of experimental parameters such as soak time, temperature, cooling rate and the effect of powder composition on nanoisland properties in a facile way. With the help of this process, we have shown that nanoislands are not peculiar to Gd containing oxide source materials on YSZ substrates and can also be produced with other source materials such as La2O3, Nd2O3, Sm2O3, Eu2O3, Tb2O3 and even Y2O3, which is already present in the substrate and hence simplifies the system further.
We have extended our work to include YSZ substrates of the (110) surface orientation and have found that instead of nanoisland arrays, we obtain an array of parallel nanobars which have their long axes oriented along the [1-10] direction on the YSZ-(110) surface. STEM EDS performed on both the bars and the nanoislands has revealed that they are solid YSZ-rich solid solutions with the dopant species and are heterogeneous in composition with dopant enrichment at the top of the islands (bars) while their bases are pure YSZ.
Finally, we discuss some of the future work directions and possible applications of these nanostructures that are being explored in collaboration with our colleagues Kunal Parikh and Prof. Jessica O. Winter in the Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Michael Susner and Prof. Michael Sumption in the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.