Exploring strain engineering of epitaxial oxide membranes to enhance oxygen evolution electrocatalysis

Complex oxides are increasingly recognized as promising alternatives to precious metals in the field of electrocatalysis due to their high catalytic activity and tailorable properties. The correlation between the structure of these oxides and their catalytic activity suggests that strain engineering could be an effective strategy for enhancement of the catalytic effect. However, current methods for strain engineering are limited to epitaxial growth on selected number of substrates with specific lattice parameters. We aim to develop a versatile, cheap and easily accessible approach for tuning the strain of epitaxial oxide membranes and the objective of this proposal is to explore how the strain influences the electrocatalytic performance of these membranes, specifically during oxygen evolution reaction (OER). We will use a specific designed electrocatalysis cell to study in operando the strain in epitaxial oxide membranes by simply bending or stretching the membranes.