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Thickness Determination of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Blocking Layer Prepared by Atomic Layer Deposition Considering the Non-uniform Surface Geometry of Porous Substrate

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Abstract

The thickness of an ultrathin blocking layer for anodic aluminum oxide (AAO)-supported thin-film solid oxide fuel cells is determined. The atomic layer-deposited (ALD) ultrathin yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) blocking layer for gadolinia-doped ceria (GDC) electrolyte cell is deposited on 300 nm-thick Pt anode-coated AAO substrates. The surface of AAO substrates is examined to be non-uniform in terms of pore size and bump inclination by field emission scanning electron microscopic analysis. While the average pore size is 130 nm, the pore size ranges from 36 to 207 nm. While the average slope angle is 42°, the slope angle ranges from 9° to 79°. A growth modelling result considering the pore sizes and the slope angles presents that highly reliable ALD-deposited YSZ blocking layers need to be thicker than 93 nm. This prediction well corresponds to the evolution of open circuit voltages for 400 nm-thick GDC electrolyte cells with 60 nm-thick and 120 nm-thick ALD-deposited YSZ blocking layers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Project (No. NRF-2018R1D1A1B07048082) and the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology Project (No. 20190129). The author would like to thank Professor Suk Won Cha at Seoul National University for sharing experimental equipment.

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  1. Department of Land, Water and Environment Research, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Goyangdae-Ro 283, Ilsanseo-Gu, Goyang, 10223, South Korea

    Sanghoon Ji

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Ji, S. Thickness Determination of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Blocking Layer Prepared by Atomic Layer Deposition Considering the Non-uniform Surface Geometry of Porous Substrate. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 21, 1085–1090 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-020-00323-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-020-00323-x

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