title: Size-Controlled AgI/Ag Heteronanowires in Highly Ordered Alumina Membranes: Superionic Phase Stabilization and Conductivity.
abstract: Nanoscaled ionic conductors are crucial for future nanodevices. A well-known ionic conductor, AgI, exhibited conductivity greater than 1 Ω(-1) cm(-1) in α-phase and transformed into poorly conducting β-/γ-phase below 147 °C, thereby limiting applications. Here, we report that transition temperatures both from the β-/γ- to α-phase (Tc↑) and the α- to β-/γ-phase (Tc↓) are tuned by AgI/Ag heteronanowires embedded in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes with 10-30 nm pores. Tc↑ and Tc↓ shift to correspondingly higher and lower temperature as pore size decreases, generating a progressively enlarged thermal hysteresis. Tc↑ and Tc↓ specifically achieve 185 and 52 °C in 10 nm pores, and the final survived conductivity reaches ∼8.3 × 10(-3) Ω(-1) cm(-1) at room temperature. Moreover, the low-temperature stabilizing α-phase (down to 21 °C, the lowest in state of the art temperatures) is reproducible and survives further thermal cycling. The low-temperature phase stabilization and enhancement conductivity reported here suggest promising applications in silver-ion-based future nanodevices.
authors.affiliation: †International Center for Materials Nanoarchitechtonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Hemin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: †International Center for Materials Nanoarchitechtonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsuchiya
authors.affiliation: ‡Key Laboratory of Materials Physics and Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China.
authors.forename: Changhao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: †International Center for Materials Nanoarchitechtonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Terabe
keywords: Silver iodide; conductivity; heteronanowire; phase transition; size dependence