Conformal electrode deposition for high performance 3D batteries

Battery cells consist of a positive electrode, electrolyte and a negative electrode, stacked on top of one another. Typically, within a single cell a trade-off needs to be made between a high energy density and a high power-density. High energy batteries favor thick electrodes, wherein a lot of active material is closely packed together, effectively maximizing the total energy which can be stored in the battery cell. However, thick electrodes lead to a large internal resistance due to the large distances the ions and electrons need to travel. High power density batteries, on the other hand, favor thinner electrodes with higher porosity for electrolyte penetration ensuring good contact between the active material and electrolyte and minimizing the path length for ions and electrons. This allows fast charging and thus high power-density but reduces the total amount of active material in the cells and thus high energy density

Redesigning the cell architecture, wherein the electrodes are deposited on 3D structures, allows the combination of both high loading of active material, while maintaining good contact with the electrolyte and minimizing the distance between the electrodes. As such, batteries combining both high energy and power density can be obtained.

For this research topic, you will develop methods to synthesize active materials on high 3D substrates for high power and energy dense battery cells. Starting from metal oxides and progressing towards more complex compositions using a combination of CVD and (photo)electrochemical techniques. The synthesis will be supported by a wide array of state of the art characterisation techniques available at imec, such as ERD, RBS, TOFSIMS,... You will work in the labs at imec and collaborate with researchers of the Energy Storage and Conversion group at imec, building on many years of experience in Li-ion microbatteries. For more information on this topic, feel free to contact Louis.DeTaeye@imec.be.