Microstructural characterization of Ce1−xTbxO2−δ (0.60 ≤ x ≤ 0.90) sintered samples

To understand the secondary phase formation in ceria based oxide, the microstructure need to be studied in a wide compositional range. However, in most previous studies, the doping concentration is lower than 50 at.%. In this work, the microstructure of Ce1−xTbxO2−δ sintered samples with Tb concentrations of 0.60 ≤ x ≤ 0.90 were investigated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Besides the fluorite-structured matrix, a secondary phase with a superstructure formed from a structural modulation of the fluorite structure along [1 1 0] and [0 0 1] directions was observed, whose amount and size reached a maximum at x = 0.90. It has a cubic structure with a lattice constant twice as large as that of the fluorite-structured matrix.