Phase integrity of zinc oxide doped zirconia under low compacting pressure

The phase stability of zirconia (ZrO2) under external perturbation draws the attention of researchers, as it governs the practical use of this material in technological applications. In this article, the phase transition in zinc oxide (ZnO) doped ZrO2 is addressed by exploiting complementary methodologies, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopic measurements. We have observed a pressure-induced partial phase transformation in the doped ZrO2 system for a compacting pressure of less than 1 GPa. It is noteworthy that the level of compacting pressure used in this study is much lower than the range of pressure, reported in the literature, for observing phase transition in pure and doped ZrO2 using other high-pressure experiments. To understand the underlying dynamics of low pressure-induced phase transformation, we carried out density functional theory calculations for the doped supercell. We have discussed the local bonding environment around the dopant metal ion (Zn2+ in the present case), which, we believe, leads to the phase evolution in a real system.