Relation between oxygen vacancy and ferroelastic domain switching in tetragonal zirconia pseudo-single crystals

Electrochemically reduced 3 mol% Y2O3-ZrO2 crystals were unidirectionally compressed in the range of 100 to 1000 MPa at temperatures from 550 to 800 degrees C to examine the effect of oxygen vacancy on ferroelastic domain switching. The switching amount of all the samples increased with increasing temperature. The switching amount of the cathode-side of reduced samples was less than that of the anode-side and as-grown samples compressed under the same stress. These results were interpreted using the model in which oxygen vacancy pins the domain wall. Domain switching occurred stepwise, and the critical stress was not influenced by the oxygen vacancy introduced by reduction.