Galvanostatic cycling of a micron-sized solid-state battery: Visually linking void evolution to electrochemistry
Haowen Gao, Chen Lin, Yuanpeng Liu, Jiashun Shi, Bowen Zhang, Zhefei Sun, Li Zhao, Yu Wang, Menghao Yang, Yong Cheng, Ming‐Sheng Wang
Abstract
The formation of interface voids, peculiar to the solid-solid contact between metal anodes and solid electrolytes (SEs), has become a fundamental obstacle for developing practical lithium metal solid-state batteries (SSBs). Addressing this issue requires the operando observation of void evolution with high spatio-temporal resolution and the direct linkage of voids to solid-state electrochemistry. Here, we present such an attempt by visualizing both the stripping and plating interfaces of a micron-sized SSB cycled in galvanostatic mode in a transmission electron microscope. Various voltage responses in the charge/discharge curves are well correlated to the nucleation, growth, and refilling of single voids. Notably, two distinct modes of Li stripping, namely, void-growth stripping and void-free stripping, are experimentally identified. We unveil the roles of stack pressure and current density on void evolutions, which suggests a mechanism of void suppression without involving plastic deformation of Li metal. Furthermore, Li|SE|Li symmetric SSBs enabling repeated void-free cycling without stack pressure are in situ demonstrated.