Spatial-decomposition analysis of electrical conductivity in ionic liquid.

The electrical conductivity of room temperature ionic liquid (IL) is investigated with molecular dynamics simulation. A trajectory of 1 μs in total is analyzed for the ionic liquid [C4mim][NTf2] (1-n-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, and the anion is also called TFSI or TFSA), and the ion motions are examined in direct connection to the conductivity within the framework formulated previously [K.-M. Tu, R. Ishizuka, and N. Matubayasi, J. Chem. Phys. 141, 044126 (2014)]. As a transport coefficient, the computed electrical conductivity is in fair agreement with the experiment. The conductivity is then decomposed into the autocorrelation term of Nernst-Einstein form and the cross-correlation term describing the two-body motions of ions, and the cross-correlation term is further decomposed spatially to incorporate the structural insights on ion configurations into the dynamic picture. It is observed that the ion-pair contribution to the conductivity is not spatially localized and extends beyond the first coordination shell. The extent of localization of the cross-correlation effect in the conductivity is in correspondence to that of the spatial correlation represented by radial distribution function, which persists over nanometer scale.