Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a powerful tool for nanoscale film deposition. It can uniformly deposit films at a monolayer level even in complex 3D structures, while the deposition temperature is relatively low with its potential scalability. In this work, surface tuning of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cathodes is successfully demonstrated by modifying the surface of La_0.6Sr_0.4Co_0.2Fe_0.8O_3−δ (LSCF) with nanoscale lanthanum strontium cobaltite (LSC) using ALD. The ALD‐LSC surface‐tuning layer can enhance the charge transfer kinetics at the cathode surface, while the backbone LSCF cathode provides a means for ionic and electronic transport. Microstructural analysis shows that the ALD‐LSC on LSCF has excellent step coverage, which is enabled by the conformal characteristic of the ALD process. It is found that the electrochemical performance of SOFCs can be enhanced enormously by surface tuning of the cathodes with nanoscale LSC film corresponding to 1–12 nm. Using density functional theory calculations, the enhanced catalytic activity of the surface‐tuned SOFC cathode using ALD‐LSC could be confirmed. This result demonstrates the possibility of nanoscale surface tuning of SOFC cathodes by using the ALD process to improve the surface activity.

中文翻译：

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原子层沉积法对固体氧化物燃料电池阴极的表面调谐

原子层沉积（ALD）是用于纳米级薄膜沉积的强大工具。即使在复杂的3D结构中，它也可以均匀地单层沉积膜，而沉积温度相对较低，具有潜在的可扩展性。在这项工作中，通过修饰La _0.6 Sr _0.4 Co _0.2 Fe _0.8 O _{3− δ}的表面成功地证明了固体氧化物燃料电池（SOFC）阴极的表面调谐（LSCF）和纳米级镧锶钴（LSC）的应用。ALD-LSC表面调节层可以增强阴极表面的电荷转移动力学，而主链LSCF阴极提供离子和电子传输的手段。微观结构分析表明，LSCF上的ALD-LSC具有出色的台阶覆盖率，这是由于ALD工艺的保形特性而实现的。已经发现，通过用对应于1-12 nm的纳米级LSC膜对阴极进行表面调谐，可以极大地提高SOFC的电化学性能。使用密度泛函理论计算，可以确定使用ALD-LSC增强了表面调谐SOFC阴极的催化活性。