Characterizing Dynamic Structure in Battery Electrodes by Time-Resolved Cryo-TEM

Conference · Mon May 16 04:00:00 EDT 2022

OSTI ID:1869273

Dutta, Nikita S.; Jungjohann, Katherine; Al-Jassim, Mowafak

In recent years, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) has enabled high-resolution characterization of sensitive battery materials by minimizing electron beam-induced artifacts and damage. Success of this technique relies on the preparation of thin, rapidly frozen samples, generally by disassembling batteries under inert atmosphere, transferring materials of interest to a TEM grid, and finally plunge freezing into a cryogen. In material degradation studies, this extensive time between electrochemical cycling and cryo-TEM characterization leaves room for structural relaxation, diffusion, and other dynamic processes that make it difficult to precisely correlate the imaged structure with the native structure that evolves during battery cycling or aging. Here, we present a method to integrate battery cycling with fast preparation of electrode samples for cryo-TEM. This enables higher fidelity between the structures characterized and the electrochemical state of interest, which we use to study deformation in silicon nanoparticle anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1869273
• Report Number(s): NREL/PO-5K00-82755; MainId:83528; UUID:2110ec21-5586-49df-b88e-56cc8d2c8f25; MainAdminID:64469
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
cryo-electron microscopy