New device takes images of lithium battery as it works and recharges
Monday, March 23, 2015 - 06:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Used in everything from electric vehicles to laptop computers, the lithium battery is ubiquitous, but it is not well understood at the atomic scale. To see what happens on the nanoscale, scientists at DOE's Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) designed and implemented a small device, known as an operando electrochemical stage. Using this stage inside a state-of-the-art aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope they can take nanoscale-resolution pictures of lithium ions as they are deposited on or dissolve off of an electrode while the battery runs.