Ion diffusion retarded by diverging chemical susceptibility

Yuhang Cai, Zhaowu Wang, Jiawei Wan, Jiachen Li, Ruihan Guo, Joel W. Ager, Ali Javey, Haimei Zheng, Jun Jiang and Junqiao Wu ()
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Yuhang Cai: Berkeley
Zhaowu Wang: Hebei University of Technology
Jiawei Wan: Berkeley
Jiachen Li: Berkeley
Ruihan Guo: Berkeley
Joel W. Ager: Berkeley
Ali Javey: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Haimei Zheng: Berkeley
Jun Jiang: University of Science and Technology of China
Junqiao Wu: Berkeley

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract For first-order phase transitions, the second derivatives of Gibbs free energy (specific heat and compressibility) diverge at the transition point, resulting in an effect known as super-elasticity along the pressure axis, or super-thermicity along the temperature axis. Here we report a chemical analogy of these singularity effects along the atomic doping axis, where the second derivative of Gibbs free energy (chemical susceptibility) diverges at the transition point, leading to an anomalously high energy barrier for dopant diffusion in co-existing phases, an effect we coin as super-susceptibility. The effect is realized in hydrogen diffusion in vanadium dioxide (VO2) with a metal-insulator transition (MIT). We show that hydrogen faces three times higher energy barrier and over one order of magnitude lower diffusivity when it diffuses across a metal-insulator domain wall in VO2. The additional energy barrier is attributed to a volumetric energy penalty that the diffusers need to pay for the reduction of latent heat. The super-susceptibility and resultant retarded atomic diffusion are expected to exist universally in all phase transformations where the transformation temperature is coupled to chemical composition, and inspires new ways to engineer dopant diffusion in phase-coexisting material systems.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50213-3

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