Laser melting is known to be capable in initiating thorough evolution in microstructure and bringing novel functional performance in metals. But realization of this potential in ceramics only reaches a preliminary stage that needs further investigation. Here we demonstrate zirconia, traditionally an insulative ceramic at low temperature, could be transformed into an electronic conductor with the conductivity on order of 10⁻³ S⋅cm^-1 at room temperature by a simple laser melting process without inducing metallic phases. Transmission electron microscopy and ab-initio simulation show that oversaturated oxygen vacancies, together with their ordered metastable distribution along <001 > , are introduced during this non-equilibrium process, and result in a clear defect level significantly narrowing bandgap to less than 1 eV, leading to the considerable electronic conductivity. These results identify a strategy of utilizing this non-equilibrium method in oxide ceramics to realize some unconventional performances determined by metastable structure thoroughly altered down to atomic level.

众所周知，激光熔化能够引发微观结构的彻底演变并为金属带来新的功能性能。但是，在陶瓷中实现这种潜力只是一个需要进一步研究的初步阶段。在这里，我们证明了氧化锆（传统上是低温绝缘陶瓷）可以通过简单的激光熔化过程在室温下转变为电导率约为10 ^-3 S·cm ^-1的电子导体，而不会诱发金属相。透射电子显微镜和从头开始模拟表明，在此非平衡过程中引入了过饱和的氧空位及其沿<001>的有序亚稳分布，并导致明显的缺陷水平，带隙显着地将带隙缩小至小于1 eV，从而导致了相当大的电子电导率。这些结果确定了一种在氧化物陶瓷中利用这种非平衡方法来实现由亚稳态结构决定的非常规性能的策略。