High oxide-ion conductivity in acceptor-doped Bi-based perovskites at modest doping levels

A combination of impedance spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and literature data are used to show that, (i) the bulk oxide ion conductivity of A-site, alkaline earth-doped BiFeO3 (BF) is independent of the ionic radius of the alkaline earth ion (Ca, Sr, Ba) and, (ii) despite very different A-site environments in (Na1/2Bi1/2)TiO3 and BF, similar high levels and optimisation of bulk oxide ion conductivity in these Bi-based tilted perovskites is achieved at modest acceptor doping levels of ∼1–10%. These results clearly demonstrate that optimisation of oxide ion conductivity in these materials requires concepts beyond a simple crystallochemical approach based on matching the ionic radii of acceptor dopant and host lattice ions.