High damage tolerance of electrochemically lithiated silicon

Xueju Wang, Feifei Fan, Jiangwei Wang, Haoran Wang, Siyu Tao, Avery Yang, Yang Liu, Huck Beng Chew, Scott X. Mao, Ting Zhu () and Shuman Xia ()
Additional contact information
Xueju Wang: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Feifei Fan: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Jiangwei Wang: University of Pittsburgh
Haoran Wang: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Siyu Tao: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Avery Yang: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Yang Liu: Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Sandia National Laboratories
Huck Beng Chew: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Scott X. Mao: University of Pittsburgh
Ting Zhu: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Shuman Xia: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Mechanical degradation and resultant capacity fade in high-capacity electrode materials critically hinder their use in high-performance rechargeable batteries. Despite tremendous efforts devoted to the study of the electro–chemo–mechanical behaviours of high-capacity electrode materials, their fracture properties and mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we report a nanomechanical study on the damage tolerance of electrochemically lithiated silicon. Our in situ transmission electron microscopy experiments reveal a striking contrast of brittle fracture in pristine silicon versus ductile tensile deformation in fully lithiated silicon. Quantitative fracture toughness measurements by nanoindentation show a rapid brittle-to-ductile transition of fracture as the lithium-to-silicon molar ratio is increased to above 1.5. Molecular dynamics simulations elucidate the mechanistic underpinnings of the brittle-to-ductile transition governed by atomic bonding and lithiation-induced toughening. Our results reveal the high damage tolerance in amorphous lithium-rich silicon alloys and have important implications for the development of durable rechargeable batteries.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9417 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9417

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9417

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().