Strain engineering of ion migration in LiCoO₂

Abstract

Strain engineering is a powerful approach for tuning various properties of functional materials. The influences of lattice strain on the Li-ion migration energy barrier of lithium-ions in layered LiCoO2 have been systemically studied using lattice dynamics simulations, analytical function and neural network method. We have identified two Li-ion migration paths, oxygen dumbbell hop (ODH), and tetrahedral site hop (TSH) with different concentrations of local defects. We found that Li-ion migration energy barriers increased with the increase of pressure for both ODH and TSH cases, while decreased significantly with applied tensile uniaxial c-axis strain for ODH and TSH cases or compressive in-plane strain for TSH case. Our work provides the complete strain-map for enhancing the diffusivity of Liion in LiCoO₂, and therefore, indicates a new way to achieve better rate performance through strain engineering.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

LiCoO₂ / strain engineering / migration energy barrier / lithium-ion battery

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