Materials Science Research Lecture

***Refreshments at 3:45pm in Noyes lobby

Abstract:

Although solid-state batteries with metal anodes promise to enable safer, higher energy density batteries, metal protrusions (dendrites) short-circuit the cell when charging faster than a critical current density. Dendrite growth is accompanied by stress and we have previously shown that applied stresses affect a dendrite's growth. We used operando birefringence microscopy to directly observe dendrite-induced stresses. The stress intensity is determined by fitting the experimentally measured stress distribution to that expected around an internally loaded crack. These operando experiments, combined with cryogenic scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) characterization of the dendrite tip, allow separate study of electrochemical and mechanical phenomena underlying dendrite growth in ceramic electrolytes. All experiments were conducted on the most electrochemically stable Li-ion conducting solid electrolyte (tantalum-doped lithium lanthanum zirconium oxide).

This work is in collaboration with Cole Fincher, Yet-Ming Chiang, Brian Sheldon

More about the Speaker:

W. Craig Carter is the Toyota Professor of Materials Science at MIT. His research interests are theory and modelling of materials. He has worked on many subfields of materials science including microstructural evolution, interface thermodynamics, electro-chemo-mechanics, and reliability. He is interested in innovations in teaching materials science.