Performance Enhancement of Thin Film LSCF Cathodes by Gold Current Collecting Layer

Performance improvement of a thin film lanthanum strontium cobalt iron oxide (La0.6Sr0.4Co0.8Fe0.2O1-δ, LSCF) cathode deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) was achieved by utilizing a sputtered gold (Au) film as a current collecting layer. To improve low inplane electric conductivity of the porous LSCF film due to its columnar structure, fabrication of the well-connected and porous current collector is applied by sputtering. The effects of the Au current collecting layer for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with the LSCF cathode are electrochemically characterized. The cell without the current collecting layer shows 14 Ω·cm2 of ohmic resistance, while the cell with the current collecting layer exhibits 5.5 Ω·cm2 of ohmic resistance at 550°C. In addition, the cell with the Au layer shows almost four times higher peak power density than the cell without the Au layer. Therefore, the results suggest that the sputtered Au current collecting layer enables fabrication of porous LSCF cathode with enhanced electric conductivity and improves the performance of the fuel cell.