| AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Nanometer-scale Science and Technology | Monday Sessions |
| Session NS-MoM |
| Session: | Oxide Based Nanoelectronics |
| Presenter: | K.R. Zavadil, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Authors: | K.R. Zavadil, Sandia National Laboratories J. Huang, Sandia National Laboratories P. Lu, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Advances in electrochemical energy storage science require the development of new or the refinement of existing in situ probes that can be used to establish structure – activity relationships for technologically relevant materials. The drive to develop reversible, high capacity electrodes from nanoscale building blocks creates an additional requirement for high spatial resolution probes to yield information of local structural, compositional, and electronic property changes as a function of the storage state of a material. In this paper, we describe a method for deconstructing a lithium ion battery positive electrode into its basic constituents of ion insertion host particles and a carbon current collector. This model system is then probed in an electrochemical environment using a combination of atomic force microscopy and tunneling spectroscopy to correlate local activity with morphological and electronic configurational changes. Cubic spinel Li1+xMn2-xO4 nanoparticles are grown on graphite surfaces using vacuum deposition methods. The structure and composition of these particles are determined using transmission electron microscopy and Auger microprobe analysis. The response of these particles to initial de-lithiation, along with subsequent electrochemical cycling, is tracked using scanning probe microscopy techniques in polar aprotic electrolytes (lithium hexafluorophosphate in ethylene carbonate:diethylcarbonate). The relationship between nanoparticle size and reversible ion insertion activity will be a specific focus of this paper.
This work is funded within the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DESC0001160. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for US DOE’s NNSA under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.