ABSTRACT
Electrochemical reactivity and ionic transport at the nanoscale are essential in many energy applications. In this study, time-resolved Kelvin probe force microscopy (tr-KPFM) is utilized for surface potential mapping of nanostructured ceria, in both space and time domains. The fundamental mechanisms of proton injection and transport are studied as a function of environmental conditions and the presence or absence of triple phase boundaries. Finite element modeling is used to extract physical parameters from the experimental data, allowing not only quantification of the observed processes, but also decoupling of their contributions to the measured signal. The constructed phase diagrams of the parameters demonstrate a thermally activated proton injection reaction at the triple phase boundary, and two transport processes that are responsible for the low-temperature proton conductivity of nanostructured ceria.
ABSTRACT
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) incorporating active piezoelectric layers offer integrated actuation, sensing, and transduction. The broad implementation of such active MEMS has long been constrained by the inability to integrate materials with giant piezoelectric response, such as Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PMN-PT). We synthesized high-quality PMN-PT epitaxial thin films on vicinal (001) Si wafers with the use of an epitaxial (001) SrTiO(3) template layer with superior piezoelectric coefficients (e(31,f) = -27 ± 3 coulombs per square meter) and figures of merit for piezoelectric energy-harvesting systems. We have incorporated these heterostructures into microcantilevers that are actuated with extremely low drive voltage due to thin-film piezoelectric properties that rival bulk PMN-PT single crystals. These epitaxial heterostructures exhibit very large electromechanical coupling for ultrasound medical imaging, microfluidic control, mechanical sensing, and energy harvesting.
