A study on electrochemical properties of yttrium doped barium zirconate electrolyte by pulsed laser deposition for thin film solid oxide fuel cell

Abstract

This paper researches the optimum deposition condition of yttrium-doped barium zirconate (BZY) through a change in the parameters of pulsed laser deposition (PLD) such as oxygen partial pressure in chamber, substrate temperature, target-substrate distance, laser power by conducting an analysis of the structural and morphological properties of BZY thin films. As the oxygen partial pressure and target-substrate distance increase, the BZY thin films show a tendency to be porous. has porous structure. If the substrate temperature increases, the crystallinity of thin films increases. Also, PLD has optimum target-substrate distance that deposition rate is set to maximum by changing oxygen partial pressure and laser power. From these data, thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that have variety of thickness in BZY electrolyte are fabricated by PLD and sputter. As thickness of BZY increases, the performance of cell increases because the root-mean-square(RMS) roughness that influences the activation of electrochemical reaction increases.