Superionic Conduction Through Lattice Engineering of Fluorites Stabilizing Periodic Oxygen Vacancy Network

Shahzad Rasool; Muhammad Faisal Anwar; Sarfraz; Nabeela Akbar; Wei Zhou; Shuo Wan; Rizwan Raza; Muhammad Afzal; Li Sun; Chenjie Lou; Mingxue Tang; Aristides D. Zdetsis; Hind Himayyid Aljaddani; Mohamed Elfleet; Peter D. Lund; Muhammad Imran Asghar; Yifu Jing; Qi Fan; Bin Zhu

doi:10.1002/eem2.70203

Energy & Environmental Materials ›› 2026, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (3) :e70203 DOI: 10.1002/eem2.70203

Research Article

Superionic Conduction Through Lattice Engineering of Fluorites Stabilizing Periodic Oxygen Vacancy Network

Author information +

¹. School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, No.2 Si Pai Lou, Nanjing, 210096 China

². School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiulonghu Campus, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189 China

³. Department of Physics, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Lahore, Pakistan

⁴. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29201 USA

⁵. Key Laboratory of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and the Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096 China

⁶. Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research, Beijing, 100193 China

⁷. Molecular Engineering Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Patras, Patras, 26500 GR, Greece

⁸. Department of Physical Sciences, College of Science, University of Jeddah, P.O. Box 80327, Jeddah, 21589 Saudi Arabia

⁹. Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80200, Jeddah, 21589 Saudi Arabia

¹⁰. Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P. O. Box 15100, FI-00076 Aalto, Espoo, Finland

¹¹. Renewable Energy Technologies Group, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, FI-33014 Finland

¹². Department of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, No.2 Si Pai Lou, Nanjing, 210096 China

¹³. Department of Material Science, Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Shenzhen, 518000 China

¹⁴. Department of Chemical Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU UK

imran.asghar@tuni.fi

jingyifu@smbu.edu.cn

fanqi1984@126.com

zhu-bin@seu.edu.cn

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Abstract

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_vs offers a scalable design strategy for high-performance efficient electrochemical systems.

Keywords

dielectric-enhanced superionic conduction / lattice-engineered configuration / periodic oxygen vacancy / Superionic conductors / vacancy-ordered framework

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Shahzad Rasool, Muhammad Faisal Anwar, Sarfraz, Nabeela Akbar, Wei Zhou, Shuo Wan, Rizwan Raza, Muhammad Afzal, Li Sun, Chenjie Lou, Mingxue Tang, Aristides D. Zdetsis, Hind Himayyid Aljaddani, Mohamed Elfleet, Peter D. Lund, Muhammad Imran Asghar, Yifu Jing, Qi Fan, Bin Zhu. Superionic Conduction Through Lattice Engineering of Fluorites Stabilizing Periodic Oxygen Vacancy Network. Energy & Environmental Materials, 2026, 9 (3) : e70203 DOI:10.1002/eem2.70203

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