Authors
Mangayarkarasi Nagarathinam, Yue Chen, Oleg Kolosov
Published in
Faraday discussions. Jul 23, 2026. Epub Jul 23, 2026.
Abstract
The solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is a nanoscale thin layer with complex nanomechanical properties that separates a battery's negative electrode and the electrolyte to allow free flow of active ions (Li or Na), while precluding electron flow. A robust and high-performance SEI is critical for battery performance, cyclability and safety, and the ability to study SEI properties in real-space and real-time (operando) holds the key for development of efficient and safe batteries. Here we report an efficient approach allowing probing of the nanoscale mechanical homogeneity of SEI layers with nanoscale depth resolution via scanning nanorheology microscopy (NRM). In NRM, the shear forces acting on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanoscale tip, measured as the tip penetrates the SEI layer from the electrolyte to the solid electrode surface, provide a 1D quantitative measure of local storage and loss elastic moduli of the SEI along the path of the tip. A key feature of the new 1D-NRM is the ability to probe nanoscale SEI dynamics operando in real-life battery electrodes that have micrometre-scale roughness, while providing nanometre-scale depth resolution. Significantly, we show that due to the nature of shear-force measurements, NRM effectively eliminates the dependence of the measurements on the diameter of the AFM tip, a parameter that is otherwise the hardest to quantify in AFM nanomechanical measurements. We successfully apply a new approach to quantify details of the SEI formation process on hard-carbon negative electrodes in Na-ion batteries.
PMID:
42490059
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Jul 2026.
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