Correlation between atomic positional shift, oxygen vacancy defects, and oxide ion conductivity in doped ceria system has been established in the gadolinium doped ceria system from X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy study at operating temperature (300–600 °C) of Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (IT-SOFC). High temperature XRD data are used to quantify atomic positional shift from mean position with temperature. The Raman spectroscopy study shows additional vibration modes related to ordering of defect spaces ${(G{d}_{\mathit{C}\mathit{e}}^{\prime }-V_o^{••})}^{*}$ and ${(2G{d}_{\mathit{C}\mathit{e}}^{\prime }-V_o^{••})}^x$ generated due to association of oxygen vacancies and reduced cerium or dopant cations site (Gd³⁺), which disappear at 450 °C; indicating oxygen vacancies dissociation from the defect complex. The experimental evidences of cation-anion positional shifting and oxygen vacancies dissociation from defect complex in the IT-SOFC operating temperature are discussed to correlate with activation energy for ionic conductivity.

We report template-free, microwave-irradiation-assisted growth of ZnS nanorods. Using this facile and high yield technique we could grow nanostructures of approximately 50-100 nm diameter and more than 1 µm in length. Effects of microwave power and irradiation time on the growth process were investigated. It was revealed that the time of refluxing plays a vital role in determining the thickness of the rods. This simple technique using a multimode microwave source may prove to be a potential tool for growing similar nanostructures of other oxide-, sulfide- and selenide-based compound semiconductors.

In the present attempt, (1 − x)NBT(Na_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃)–xST(SrTiO₃) (x = 0.24–0.28) solid solutions are studied near the MPB region to investigate short-range structural and dielectric anomalies.