Preparation and electrical properties of inorganic electride [YTiO](2e).

Oxygen-depleted samples [YTiO ](2e) (0 ≤ ≤ 1.0) were prepared by reducing YTiO powders at 500 °C to 650 °C using CaH as a reductive agent, where represents the content of , which was determined by thermogravimetric analysis. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns illustrate that the pure pyrochlore phase is kept for the samples with ≤ 1.0, whereas the apparent values surpass 1.0, and the impurity phase YO appears. The electride [YTiO ](2e) ( ≈ 1.0) can be obtained under a reductive condition, in which the concentration of V is 7.75 × 10 cm. The electron paramagnetic resonance measurements gave the concentration of unpaired electrons in the electride as 1.30 × 10 cm, indicating that the degree of the ionization of is less than 10%. Conductivity measurements for a sintered pellet sample (relative density ∼ 70%) indicate that the electride has quite high conductivity (∼1.09 S cm at 300 K). The conduction was interpreted by using the variable range hopping mechanisms.