Conceptual Framework for Dislocation-Modified Conductivity in Oxide Ceramics Deconvoluting Mesoscopic Structure, Core, and Space Charge Exemplified for SrTiO<sub>3</sub>
Lukas Porz, Till Frömling, Atsutomo Nakamura, Ning Li, Ryohei Maruyama, Katsuyuki Matsunaga, Peng Gao, Hugh Simons, Christian Dietz, Marcus Rohnke, Jürgen Janek, Jürgen Rödel
Abstract
The introduction of dislocations is a recently proposed strategy to tailor the functional and especially the electrical properties of ceramics. While several works confirm a clear impact of dislocations on electrical conductivity, some studies raise concern in particular when expanding to dislocation arrangements beyond a geometrically tractable bicrystal interface. Moreover, the lack of a complete classification on pertinent dislocation characteristics complicates a systematic discussion and hampers the design of dislocation-modified electrical conductivity. We proceed by mechanically introducing dislocations with three different mesoscopic structures into the model material single-crystal SrTiO3 and extensively characterizing them from both a mechanical as well as an electrical perspective. As a final result, a deconvolution of mesoscopic structure, core structure, and space charge enables us to obtain the complete picture of the effect of dislocations on functional properties, focusing here on electric properties.