Colin Ophus (left) and Alpesh Khushalchand Shukla in front of the TEAM 0.5 microscope at the Molecular Foundry. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt/Berkeley Lab)
Using complementary microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) say they have solved the structure of lithiumand manganese-rich transition metal oxides, a potentially game-changing battery material and the subject of intense debate in the decade since it was discovered. Researchers have been divided into three schools of thought on the material's structure, but a team led by Alpesh Khushalchand Shukla and Colin Ophus spent nearly four years analyzing the material and concluded that the least popular theory is in fact the correct one. Their " Other co-authors were Berkeley Lab scientists Guoying Chen and Hugues Duncan and SuperSTEM scientists Quentin Ramasse and Fredrik Hage. This material is important because the battery capacity can potentially be doubled compared to the most commonly used Li-ion batteries today due to the extra lithium in the structure. "However, it doesn't come without problems, such as voltage fade, capacity fade, and DC resistance rise," said Shukla. "It is immensely important that we clearly understand the bulk and surface structure of the pristine material. We can't solve the problem unless we know the problem." A viable battery with a marked increase in storage capacity would not only shake up the cell phone and laptop markets, it would also transform the market for electric vehicles (EVs).
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