Ionic conduction in cubic zirconias at low temperatures

The ac conductivities of Y2O3 or CaO-stabilized cubic zirconias were obtained from complex impedance measurements in the temperature range from 373 to 473 K. By analyzing the temperature-dependence of the resultant dc conductivities, it was shown that the activation energies for conduction are lower than those reported previously for the same materials at high temperatures. Comparing the activation energy data with the theoretically estimated values revealed that there may exist a certain, although very small, amount of free oxygen vacancies in the test samples at low temperatures and the conduction in the test samples is a result of the migration of these free oxygen vacancies.