Enhanced ionic conductivity of aluminum tungstate by crystallographic orientation in a strong magnetic field

The ionic conduction of multiply charged ions, rather than singly charged ions, is beneficial for energy storage and sensor applications. The low mobility of multiply charged ions is one important obstacle to the implementation of these applications. Chemical methods, such as doping and solid solution formation, have been used to improve ionic conductivity. However, the apparent performance of ceramic electrolytes can be improved by the crystallographic alignment of anisotropic grains. In this study, crystal-oriented aluminum tungstate ceramics were processed by slip casting in a strong magnetic field. The b-axis- and c-axis-oriented aluminum tungstate ceramics can be produced by this technique. The orientation of grains along the b-axis could enhance ionic conductivity by at least 1.77 times compared to that of a randomly oriented sample and 2.13 times compared to that of the c-axis-oriented sample. The results of this study suggest that this method can improve the ionic conductivity of an anisotropic material using polycrystalline processing instead of difficult single-crystal synthesis techniques.