Lithium metal batteries (LMBs) feature the adoption of lithium metal (Li) as their anodes and thereby enable much higher energy density than that of state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. Li metal has been highly regarded as an ultimate anode for high-energy rechargeable batteries, ascribed to its extremely high capacity (3860 mAh/g) and the lowest negative electrochemical potential (-3.04 V versus the standard hydrogen electrode). However, Li metal has been hindered from commercialization so far, due to its high reactivity and dendritic growth. To this end, uncountable efforts have been invested to address these issues and they can be categorized into two main strategies: (i) architecting Li anodes and (ii) Li interface engineering. In pursuing technical solutions, atomic/molecular layer deposition (ALD and MLD) have emerged as two new techniques in the past decade. These two techniques are uniquely capable of accurately tuning battery interfaces at the atomic/molecular level. Owing to their similar growth mechanism, ALD and MLD can produce extremely uniform and conformal coatings at low deposition temperature. Using ALD and MLD, recently we have developed a variety of new lithium-containing inorganic compounds and polymers, showing high ion conductivity of &gt; 10-3 S/cm at room temperature. With these inorganic and organic coatings, we could achieve superior Li anodes with extremely long lifetime (up to 20,000 plating-stripping cycles) in Li/Li symmetric cells. Through coupling with sulfur (S) and LiNixMnyCozO2 (NMC) cathodes, particularly, the ALD/MLD-modified Li anodes could remarkably improve the performance of the resultant Li-S and Li-NMC LMBs. Therefore, we concluded that ALD are MLD are two powerful tools for developing high-energy LMBs.

Promising lithium metal batteries by atomic and molecular layer deposition

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