3 V for cell 1 was significantly lower than that for cell 2 (approximately 1.0 V). This result indicates that the lower OCV of the GDC-based cells may have originated from oxygen permeation through the GDC electrolyte and/or ceria reduction, not from

gas leakage through pinholes. In order to verify the effect of the ALD YSZ layer, we characterized electrochemical performances of GDC/YSZ bilayered thin-film fuel cell (cell 3, Pt/GDC/YSZ/Pt), which has a 40-nm-thick ALD YSZ layer at the anodic interface as shown in Figure 4. As expected, the OCV of cell 3 with the ALD YSZ layer stayed selleck products at a decent value of approximately 1.07 V, unlike that of cell 1 (approximately 0.3 V). This discrepancy indicated that the ALD YSZ layer played a successful role as a functional layer to suppress selleck screening library the issues that originated from thin-film GDC electrolyte such as the electronic current leakage and the oxygen permeation [15–17]. The thicknesses of GDC layers in cells 1 and 3 were 850 and 420 nm, respectively. Originally, it was intended for the comparison of the

two samples with the same GDC thickness, but a 420-nm-thick GDC-based cell showed highly unstable outputs in the measured quantities. While the peak power density of the cell (cell 3) with an YSZ blocking layer reached approximately 35 mW/cm2, that of the single-layered GDC-based cell (cell 1) showed a much lesser power density below approximately 0.01 mW/cm2, as shown in Figure 5a,b. Figure 3 FE-SEM cross-sectional images of cells 1 and 2. (a) A GDC single-layered thin-film fuel cell (cell 1) and (b) a SIPO single-layered thin-film fuel cell (cell 2). Figure 4 FE-SEM cross-sectional image of a GDC/YSZ bilayered thin-film fuel cell (cell 3). Figure 5 Electrochemical performances of cells 1 and 3. (a) A 850-nm-thick GDC electrolyte fuel cell (cell 1) and (b) a 460-nm-thick GDC/YSZ electrolyte fuel cell (cell 3) measured at 450°C. To evaluate the stability of GDC/YSZ bilayered thin-film fuel cell (cell 3), the OCV and the peak power density were measured for

4 h at 450°C, as shown in Figure 6. While reduction of the OCV was negligible, the peak power density sharply decreased by approximately 30% after 4 h. This sharp performance degradation in the AAO-supported thin-film fuel cells was previously studied by Kwon et Rucaparib concentration al. [32]. They ascribed the reason to the agglomeration of the Pt thin-film without microstructural supports. In line with the explanation, the agglomeration of Pt particles was clearly visible when comparing the surface morphologies before and after a cell test, and the degradation of power output caused by the Pt cathode agglomeration was also confirmed through AC impedance measurements. Nevertheless, the stability of AAO-supported GDC/YSZ thin-film fuel cells was relatively superior to ‘freestanding’ thin-film fuel cells with click here silicon-based substrates [33]. Actually, the configuration of the AAO-supported thin-film fuel cells was maintained after 10 h at 450°C.