Electrical and thermal conductivities of rare-earth A2Zr2O7 (A = Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, and Er)

Structural and thermoelectric properties of rare-earth zirconates A2Zr2O7, with A = Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, and Er, were studied. Samples were prepared by solid-state reaction at ambient pressure with temperatures between 1000 and 1400 °C. The resulting compounds were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS). The XRD analyses showed the formation of polycrystalline Pr2Zr2O7, Nd2Zr2O7, Sm2Zr2O7, Gd2Zr2O7 and Er2Zr2O7 phases, with a cubic cell (space group Fm3m) and traces of the raw used materials. The micrographs obtained by SEM show the formation of heterogeneous grains with a size that ranges from 0.7 to 4.7 μm. All A2Zr2O7 samples present porous surfaces. Thermal conductivities were measured at different temperatures, from 300 to 900 K. In most of the samples, the thermal conductivity monotonically decreases with temperature, from 0.40 – 1.17 W/mK at 300 K to 0.27 – 0.77 W/mK at 773.15 K. At a fixed temperature, the thermal conductivity decreases almost monotonically with the ionic radius (IR) of the rare-earth elements (where IR (Er3+) = 0.890 Å < IR (Gd3+) = 0.938 Å < IR (Sm3+) = 0.958 Å < IR (Nd3+) = 0.983 Å < IR (Pr3+) = 0.99 Å).