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Ultralow thermal conductivity of cerium-doped Nd2Zr2O7 over a wide doping range

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Abstract

In this paper, we report an ultralow thermal conductivity and a high-temperature phase stability of the (Nd1−x Ce x )2Zr2O7+x system over the temperature range from room temperature to 1600 °C and over a wide composition range (0.2 ≤ x ≤ 0.8), and the (Nd1−x Ce x )2Zr2O7+x system is therefore considered a strong candidate material for the fabrication of next-generation high-temperature thermal barrier coatings. The observed thermal conductivities (0.65–1.0 W/mK) are about 60–40% lower than those of undoped Nd2Zr2O7 over the same temperature range (100–700 °C) and indicate a glass-like behavior. For comparison, the variation in the thermal conductivity with the temperature of the (Gd1−x Ce x )2Zr2O7+x system with similar point defects was also measured, and the observed behavior was almost the same as that of undoped Gd2Zr2O7 and was mostly determined by phonon–phonon scattering (λ ∝ 1/T). The effect of point defect scattering and strong phonon scattering sources (rattlers) on the thermal conductivity is also discussed in this paper. The results of this study suggest that the ultralow thermal conductivity of (Nd1−x Ce x )2Zr2O7+x can be attributed to the presence of rattlers because of the large difference between the ionic radii of the Nd3+ and Ce4+ ions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are deeply grateful to Dr. RuishiXie, Dr. Guohua Ma, and Dr. Yang Cui for assistance with XRD, SEM and thermal diffusivity measurements. This work was supported by the project of NSFC–11505146 and defense industrial technology development program JCKY2016404C001.

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  1. Department of Defence Science and Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, 621010, China

    Xin Wang, Kuo Jiang & Songbai Liu

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  1. Xin Wang
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  2. Kuo Jiang
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Correspondence to Kuo Jiang.

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Wang, X., Jiang, K. & Liu, S. Ultralow thermal conductivity of cerium-doped Nd2Zr2O7 over a wide doping range. J Mater Sci 52, 10098–10105 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1212-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1212-5

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