@article{2fc24059e92d4cf8ac955b6d979a713d,
title = "Electrochemically induced amorphous-to-rock-salt phase transformation in niobium oxide electrode for Li-ion batteries",
abstract = "Intercalation-type metal oxides are promising negative electrode materials for safe rechargeable lithium-ion batteries due to the reduced risk of Li plating at low voltages. Nevertheless, their lower energy and power density along with cycling instability remain bottlenecks for their implementation, especially for fast-charging applications. Here, we report a nanostructured rock-salt Nb2O5 electrode formed through an amorphous-to-crystalline transformation during repeated electrochemical cycling with Li+. This electrode can reversibly cycle three lithiums per Nb2O5, corresponding to a capacity of 269 mAh g−1 at 20 mA g−1, and retains a capacity of 191 mAh g−1 at a high rate of 1 A g−1. It exhibits superb cycling stability with a capacity of 225 mAh g−1 at 200 mA g−1 for 400 cycles, and a Coulombic efficiency of 99.93%. We attribute the enhanced performance to the cubic rock-salt framework, which promotes low-energy migration paths. Our work suggests that inducing crystallization of amorphous nanomaterials through electrochemical cycling is a promising avenue for creating unconventional high-performance metal oxide electrode materials.",
author = "Pete Barnes and Yunxing Zuo and Kiev Dixon and Dewen Hou and Sungsik Lee and Zhiyuan Ma and Connell, {Justin G.} and Hua Zhou and Changjian Deng and Kassiopeia Smith and Eric Gabriel and Yuzi Liu and Maryon, {Olivia O.} and Davis, {Paul H.} and Haoyu Zhu and Yingge Du and Ji Qi and Zhuoying Zhu and Chi Chen and Zihua Zhu and Yadong Zhou and Simmonds, {Paul J.} and Briggs, {Ariel E.} and Darin Schwartz and Ong, {Shyue Ping} and Hui Xiong",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant no. DMR-1454984). Use of the environmental atomic force microscope was supported by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program (grant no. 1727026). We acknowledge B. Dunn from the University of California, Los Angeles for insightful discussion. We also thank W. Xu from Argonne National Laboratory for support of synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements. We thank P. Boysen from the Boise State University machine shop for his knowledge and expertise in the production of equipment used in this study. Use of the Center for Nanoscale Materials and Advanced Photon Source, both Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities, was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. XPS, time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry and data analysis were supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under award no. 10122 and performed using the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (grid.436923.9), a Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research programme. This research also used recourses at the Surface Science Laboratory and Boise State Center for Materials Characterization at Boise State University. Y.Z., J.Q., Zhuoying Zhu, C.C. and S.P.O. acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center programme through the University of California, Irvine Center for Complex and Active Materials (DMR-2011967) for the computational portions of this work; the use of data and software resources from the Materials Project, funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract no. DE-AC02-05-CH11231 (Materials Project programme KC23MP); and computing resources provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment under grant ACI-1548562. Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant no. DMR-1454984). Use of the environmental atomic force microscope was supported by the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program (grant no. 1727026). We acknowledge B. Dunn from the University of California, Los Angeles for insightful discussion. We also thank W. Xu from Argonne National Laboratory for support of synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements. We thank P. Boysen from the Boise State University machine shop for his knowledge and expertise in the production of equipment used in this study. Use of the Center for Nanoscale Materials and Advanced Photon Source, both Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities, was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. XPS, time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry and data analysis were supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under award no. 10122 and performed using the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (grid.436923.9), a Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research programme. This research also used recourses at the Surface Science Laboratory and Boise State Center for Materials Characterization at Boise State University. Y.Z., J.Q., Zhuoying Zhu, C.C. and S.P.O. acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center programme through the University of California, Irvine Center for Complex and Active Materials (DMR-2011967) for the computational portions of this work; the use of data and software resources from the Materials Project, funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract no. DE-AC02-05-CH11231 (Materials Project programme KC23MP); and computing resources provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment under grant ACI-1548562. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",
year = "2022",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1038/s41563-022-01242-0",
language = "English",
volume = "21",
pages = "795--803",
journal = "Nature Materials",
issn = "1476-1122",
number = "7",
}