These bismuth platinum pyrochlore films have potential for use in fuel cells, where they could act as more effective cathode materials. Using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at the G3 beamline of CHESS to co-deposit epitaxial δ-Bi2O3 and disordered platinum, the team was able to produce epitaxial Bi2Pt2O7 crystals approximately 100 nanometers in length by annealing the PLD deposited films in air. The pyrochlore thin-films were studied using a combination of synchrotron based x-ray diffraction, x-ray absorption, and x-ray fluorescence. The structure and morphology of the films was visualized with scanning transmission electron microscopy. This work was recently published in APL Materials (http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4908103),and highlighted by the American Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/researchers-synthesize-new-thin-film-material-use-fuel-cells.
First-ever epitaxial bismuth platinum pyrochlore thin-films grown at CHESS
Araceli Gutiérrez-Llorente, a visiting scientist from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, and a team of researchers from the energy materials center at Cornell (emc2) and CHESS, have produced the first-ever epitaxial Bi2Pt2O7 thin-films.
