Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Zhejiang, Ningbo 315201, People's Republic of China.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:1084. doi: 10.1038/srep01084. Epub 2013 Jan 17.
The past decades have witnessed the development of many technologies based on nanoionics, especially lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Now there is an urgent need for developing LIBs with good high-rate capability and high power. LIBs with nanostructured electrodes show great potentials for achieving such goals. However, the nature of Li-ion transport behaviors within the nanostructured electrodes is not well clarified yet. Here, Li-ion transport behaviors in Li(x)CoO(2) nanograins are investigated by employing conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) technique to study the local Li-ion diffusion induced conductance change behaviors with a spatial resolution of ~10 nm. It is found that grain boundary has a low Li-ion diffusion energy barrier and provides a fast Li-ion diffusion pathway, which is also confirmed by our first principles calculation. This information provides important guidelines for designing high performance LIBs from a point view of optimizing the electrode material microstructures and the development of nanoionics.
在过去的几十年中，基于纳电子学的许多技术得到了发展，特别是锂离子电池 (LIBs)。现在迫切需要开发具有良好倍率性能和高功率的 LIBs。具有纳米结构电极的 LIBs 在实现这些目标方面具有很大的潜力。然而，纳米结构电极中锂离子输运行为的本质尚未得到很好的阐明。在这里，通过采用导电原子力显微镜 (C-AFM) 技术研究了 Li(x)CoO(2)纳米颗粒中的锂离子输运行为，以空间分辨率约为 10nm 研究了局部锂离子扩散诱导的电导变化行为。结果发现，晶界具有较低的锂离子扩散能垒，并提供了快速的锂离子扩散途径，这也得到了我们第一性原理计算的证实。这些信息为从优化电极材料微观结构和发展纳电子学的角度设计高性能 LIBs 提供了重要的指导。
