Effect of aliovalent dopants on the kinetics of spinodal decomposition in rutile-type TiO2-VO2

The effects of aliovalent dopants on the kinetics of spinodal decomposition in a rutile-type TiO2-VO2 system were studied by means of x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. In this study, as prepared polycrystalline samples were annealed at 673 k inside the spinodal. For undoped samples, phase decomposition occurred along the [001] direction, and a lamellar structure formed on the nanometer length scale. The phase decomposition kinetics in this system were sensitive to the type of aliovalent dopant; the decomposition rate in a sample doped with Al2O3 was more than one order of magnitude higher than a sample doped with . These observations could be explained on the basis of the premise that cation interstitial mobility is greater than cation vacancy mobility. The obtained results are consistent with those for a TiO2-SnO2 system, indicating that phase separation in both rutile-type oxide systems can be interpreted through a common framework. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.