Engineering M-Si (M:Ag,Cu) thin films as negative electrodes for lithium ion batteries

It is essential to use low-cost and environmentally friendly energy storage systems. In this concept, all inovations done in energy storage devices are issued from accurate material selection and process design. In todays world, among alternative energy storage devices, lithium ion battery (LIB) becomes more important. They provide electrical power for a wide variety of applications such as power tools, aerospace and small portable electronic devices. However, current LIB technology can not satisfy the energy and power requirements of long life cell phones, electrical/hybrid vehicles and smart grids. We consider the example of smartphones, when graphitic based LIB are used, its charge can only endure for one day. When the use of LIB in Tesla Roadster (EV) is considered, EV carries 6831 lithium ion cells which together weight half a ton in the car. However, so many cells can only cover a distance of about 450-500 km, which is around half the driving distance of a fully loaded gasoline vehicle. Taking into consideration these facts, Department of Energy (DoE, USA) and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO, Japon) indicate that improving the battery performance with higher energy density, longer battery life and lower cost should be the priority in energy researches. Therefore, making successful development in LIB will be the strategic target to work on for nations around the world. So far, one of the challenge substituting graphite with high capacity alternative materials has been highlighted as a crucial challenge. In this sense, the use of various materials (C, Sn, Al, Sb, Bi) has been evaluated as anodes in LIB. Among them, silicon (Si) becomes prominent due to its high theoretical storage capacity (3579 mAh g-1 at room temperature), low operation potential (-370 mV vs Li/Li+), eco friendliness, high abundance on Earth's crust and low cost comparable to those of graphite. Despite these merits of Si, it has not yet replaced graphite in commercial applications, because when lithium ions (Li+) reacts with Si, more than 300% volume expansion occurs generating an immense amount of stress in the anode. This stress causes a severe material collapse and electrical isolation, resulting in low coulombic efficiency (CE) and rapidly declining capacity. Moreover, as the electrochemical alloying potential of Si is above the solvent reduction level, a passive film (solid electrolyte interphase (SEI)) forms at the electrode/electrolyte interface. Herein, it is worth to note that volume expansion in cycling yields unstable SEI between the Si surface and electrolyte, which leads to an increase in impedance. Finally, the low electrical conductivity (10-3 S cm-1) and low Li diffusion coefficient (10-14-10-13 cm2s-1) in Si hinder fast electron transfers resulting high resistance in the electrode, hence failure in the early stages of cycling. To be able to use Si electrodes in electrical vehicles or other advanced technological devices, highly stress-tolerant Si anodes that would withstand massive current demands while providing high energy density should be designed. It is known that, all potential commercial anode architectures have not been able to deliver a combination of high power and high energy density over a long range of cycles. Thus, there is a need to design LIB electrodes that can be discharged/charged at high rates to meet the high current demands of advanced technologies. At the same time, the mechanical integrity should be maintained and the production cost should be feasible. Herein, fabricating nano-structructured Si thin film by physical vapor deposition techniques becomes prominent because it is believed that delamination and quick faillure of the thin film electrodes might be prevented by using nano-engineering strategies, including nano-structuring and composition grading. In this dissertation, taking the above-mentioned claims as motivations an original idea of engineering Si based films to be used as negative electrodes in lithium ion batteries has been proposed. Magnetron sputtering and (glancing angle) electron beam evaporation processes have been chosen as the production techniques. Magnetron sputtering is used since highly energetic sputtered particles are believed to promote the intermetalic formation along the film as well as the adhesion of the coating to the substrate, and glancing angle electron beam evaporation method has been utilized since the process enables one to design nanoarchitectured thin film with a well aligned morphology. To overcome the above mentioned restrictions of Si based anodes some researchers are working to design new functional electrodes and others optimize the testing conditions and/or innovate cell designs. The objective of this study is to gain insights in how to design new negative electrodes for next generation LIB. The results show that both process and material science engineerings should be used to produce next generation Si based electrodes. Following this idea, in this dissertation a material selection is purposed: use of electrochemically active (Ag) or inactive elements (Cu) with Si has been evaluated. Moreover, we have also modified production processes and characterization methods: cut-off voltages of the galvanostatic tests are optimized in the first chapter, high power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS) is used to deposit Si film in the second chapter, then ion assistance is adopted to the glancing angle electron beam deposition process in the third chapter. In this dissertation, a compositional improvement has been done by cosputtering Ag atoms with Si, in the first chapter. Ag atoms having the highest electrical conductivity among all materials are believed to create electron conductive pathways in the Si anode so that a Si based film with 3.2 microns thickness could be able to cycle with high performance. As Ag atoms are also electrochemically active versus Li, the lithiation reactions of SiAg film has been optimized by using different lower cutoff voltages in galvanostatic test. The SiAg composite electrode fails in 20 cycles when cycled between 0.005-1.2 V, whilst delivers around 1700 mAh g-1 after 60th cycled when cycled between 0.2-1.2 V. The approach proposed in this study is believed to offer a new gateway for material science to handle both the material properties as well as the testing conditions, to increase the electrochemical performance of the new electrodes. The fact that Ag is a heavy and expensive metal, an alternative electrochemically inactive element Cu is used in the second chapter where we fabricate functionally graded SiCu film with 2.4 micron thickness. By tuning Cu content of the film along the thickness and improving the interaction between highly energetic Si and Cu atoms, a Si based electrode with high rate capability and cycle performance has been achieved by magnetron sputtering process. Herein Cu has been particularly chosen since it is the second most conductive metal after Ag. Plus being inactive versus Li, ductile behavior of Cu is expected to improve both physical and mechanical properties of the Si based electrodes. In the experiments, HPPMS process has been used to deposit Si film without arcing. The functionally-graded Si-Cu film performs 1500 mAh g-1 after 100th cycle when cycled at 100 mA g-1, and deliver roughly 700 mAh g-1 when cycled at 500 mA g-1. This high capacity value has been first found in the literature for such a thick film electrode. This outstanding performance of the electrode is believed to be a result of synergy gathered from its compositional, structural and morphological particularities: The highly adherent compositionally graded film has high electronic conductivity as well as mechanical tolerance against volumetric changes due to Cu atoms existence. Cu atoms provide minimum electrochemical sintering or Si particle agglomeration during cycling. Plus, as a result of the varying Cu atoms presence along the film thickness (pure Cu at the bottom and 10%at. Cu at the top) the stress propagation in the electrode during cycling is highly improved. Moreover, interspaces among the domains help to handle strain changes in cycling. Besides, amorphous and nano-sized crystalline morphology promotes the reversibility of the reactions. And finally, in the third chapter, first in literature compositionally graded helices containing SiCu film has been produced by glancing angle electron beam evaporation method. Herein, as an innovative approach, an ion assisted deposition technique was adopted to glancing angle deposition method to increase the adhesion of the helices to the substrate. The micro-spring behavior of the helices as well as the porosity (interspaces among the helices) in the well aligned film improve the mechanical resistance of the film, while the stress propagation is improved thanks to the compositionally graded structure. This electrode delivers approximately 1200 mAh g-1 after 100th cycles when cycled with 100 mA g-1 rate. In terms of technology and development of our country, impact of researches on LIB is increasing day by day. Taking into consideration this fact, this thesis represents a supportive step for the states-of-art of anode materials used in LIB.