Oxygen vacancy ordering induced displacements of cations in yttria-stabilized zirconia

Using scanning transmission electron microscopy, we report direct observation of oxygen vacancy ordering induced atomic displacements of the cation sub-lattice in yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). We find that the cation lattice adopts a zigzag configuration along the [100] direction with alternately narrow and wide lattice spacings equivalent of 0.85 and 1.15 times of the (200) inter-planar distance of the cubic YSZ. Using atomistic simulations, we show that the cation displacements are induced by the alternate presence of oxygen vacancies at the (1/4, 1/4, 1/4) and (1/4, 3/4, 1/4) sites of the unit cells in the [001] direction. The results demonstrate that significant enrichment of yttrium atoms can occur within individual YSZ grains in addition to the typical surface or grain boundary segregation of dopant atoms.