‘In-situ’ characterisation of battery materials using surface science techniques

The world urgently needs better battery technology if we are to rapidly move towards a low-carbon society.  However, commercially-available batteries currently do not store enough energy, have limited working lifetimes, and are too expensive to make large-scale electrification viable. To design improved batteries, a better understand of chemical processes inside a battery during charging and discharging is needed.  This requires measuring the flow of ions and electrons across multiple interfaces, buried within the battery.  My project will develop methodologies to study these interfaces using secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES).  The goal is to accurately measure the interfacial composition of batteries under real conditions i.e. at different points during the charge/discharge cycle.

Publications

A. H. Alsaedi, A. S. Walton, N. P. Lockyer; Secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis of metal oxides using 70 keV argon, carbon dioxide, and water gas cluster ion beams. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 1 July 2023; 41 (4): 044007. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0002591