Superionic Conduction Through Lattice Engineering of Fluorites Stabilizing Periodic Oxygen Vacancy Network
Superionic conductors with an exceptionally high ionic conductivity are placed central in the development of next‐generation energy conversion and storage technologies, yet their designing approach and materials remain a persistent challenge. Here, we report an alternative cation‐ordered Ce–Al (1:1) fluorite oxide (ACO) that stabilizes a periodic oxygen vacancy (O v ) network to build the required architecture. The resulting lattice‐engineered configuration creates a uniform and flattened potential energy landscape with significantly reduced activation energy, capable of a superionic conductivity of 0.216 S cm −1 and a fuel cell power density of 1086 mW cm −2 at 500 °C. Unlike conventional random ion hopping in doped oxides, the vacancy‐ordered framework supports coherent, phonon‐assisted and wave‐like ions motion enabling dielectric‐enhanced superionic conduction. These findings introduce a new family of superionic conductors, where lattice‐level ordering of both cations and O v s offers a scalable design strategy for high‐performance efficient electrochemical systems.
Authors
- Aristides D. Zdetsis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1111-5762)
- Shahzad Rasool (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5504-3727)
- Mohamed Elfleet
- Nabeela Akbar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5174-2683)
- Chenjie Lou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0684-9625)
- Shuo Wan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5693-0651)
- Peter D. Lund (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4819-3847)
- Muhammad Imran Asghar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3559-0955)
- Mingxue Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5819-5048)
- Dr Rizwan Raza
- Wei Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0322-095X)
- Yifu Jing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9447-9689)
- Li Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0791-7722)
- Qi Fan
- Hind Himayyid Aljaddani
- Bin Zhu
- Muhammad Afzal
- Muhammad Faisal Anwar
- Sarfraz
Institutions
- Loughborough University (GB)
- University of South Carolina (US)
- COMSATS University Islamabad (PK)
- University of Patras (GR)
- Shenzhen University (CN)
- King Abdulaziz University (SA)
- Southeast University (BD)
- Ministry of Education (RO)
- University of Jeddah (SA)
- Tampere University (FI)
- Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research (CN)
- Shenzhen Technology University (CN)
- Southeast University (CN)
- Aalto University (FI)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Energy & environment materials
- Published
- 2026-01-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/eem2.70203
- Primary Topic
- Advancements in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Government of Jiangsu Province
- Jiangsu Science and Technology Department
- Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy