Evidence of interaction between oxygen ions from conductivity relaxation and quasielastic light scattering data of yttria-stabilized zirconia

The appearances of two distinct activation energies at high and low temperatures, an anomalously high attempt frequency and a stretched-exponential time correlation function at low temperatures for oxygen-ion diffusion in yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) are shown to be quantitatively consistent with the predictions of the coupling model. These anomalies, which occur in conductivity relaxation and quasielastic light scattering data, are caused by interactions between the diffusing oxygen ions in YSZ.