(Invited) Multiscale Interfacial Heterogeneity Explored by Advanced Spectroscopy and Imaging for Batteries Beyond Lithium-Ion
Authors: Yang Guang , Nanda Jagjit 
Published: September 2023

Keywords: solid-liquid interface, solid-state battery, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), neutron tomography, sulfide solid-state electrolyte, Raman imaging

The ever-growing needs for energy storage systems require batteries with even higher power and energy density with extended life and enhanced safety beyond the current Li-ion battery technologies. Fulfilling these needs requires new battery chemistries, including high-energy-density electrode materials, solid-state electrolytes, and efficient interphases to mitigate the side reactions between the electrodes and the electrolytes.

Charge transport across the electrode and electrolyte interface is believed to be one of the charge/discharge rate-limiting steps. Although the composition, morphology, and structure of solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) have been extensively studied, probing its evolution at the nanoscale is challenging to a large extent. Plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (PERS) is promising to solve this challenge. PERS is the resonant oscillation of conduction electrons at the interface between negative and positive permittivity molecules stimulated by incident light. It includes surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). In the first part of this talk, I will show that gap-mode SERS is ideal to probe salt solvation structure in the immediate vicinity (< 20 nm) of the electrode/electrolyte interface. SERS lacks the nanoscale resolution in the sample plane. This can be compensated by TERS. TERS analysis on cycled high-energy silicon anodes indicates that the nanometer scale SEI "islands" are unevenly distributed. Even for the same SEI "island", the composition is different from point to point with inter-point distance smaller than 10 nm.

All-solid-state lithium metal batteries (SSBs) promise specific energy >500 Wh/kg. A solid-state electrolyte (SSE) plays an irreplaceable role in reaching such an energy-density goal. Sulfide-based SSEs have emerged as a prominent class of soft ionic conductors that have comparable room-temperature ionic conductivity to their liquid electrolyte counterparts. However, when paring with a high voltage cathode, such as lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), the (electro)chemical instability of the sulfide SSE at the electrode/SSE interfaces becomes a major challenge. The interfacial instability can result in >50% initial capacity loss in a Li/sulfide SSE/NMC battery, thereby keeping the sulfide SSEs from commercialization. In the second part of this talk, I will show how we synergistically use neutron computed tomography and in situ Raman imaging, with clustering analysis to track lithium displacement at the interface of a sulfide-based SSB.

Acknowledgment

This research was conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and is supported by Asst. Secretary, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) through the Advanced Battery Materials Research (BMR) Program. This research used resources at High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science User Facilities operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.