Oxygen ion dynamics in yttria-stabilized zirconia as evaluated by solid-state 17O NMR spectroscopy

Solid-state O-17 NMR measurements between room temperature and 973 K were performed for the first time on O-17-enriched yttria-stabilized zirconia samples. Spin-lattice relaxation is found to exhibit a strong temperature dependence which can be traced back to motional displacements of the oxygen ions and which is almost unaffected by the actual sample constitution. Analysis of the spin-lattice relaxation data provides the motional correlation times. The derived activation energies are relatively low with values of about 30 kJ/mol. In addition, large temperature effects are observed for the O-17 NMR line widths, and thus for spin-spin relaxation, which are again attributed to the oxygen ion mobility. In this case, the underlying oxygen motions, however, occur on a length-scale which is different from that probed by spin-lattice relaxation. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.