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Cathode surface of lithium-ion battery discovered to have a spotted pattern

Cathode surface of lithium-ion battery discovered to have a spotted pattern

Summary

Assistant Professor Katsuya Iwaya (Concurrently the Senior Fellow at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science) and Associate Professor Taro Hitosugi of the Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University, together with Researcher Takashi Ogawa of the Japan Fine Ceramics Center and Associate Professor Kiyotaka Miyoshi of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of Science and Engineering at Shimane University jointly conducted research. They observed the surface structure of lithium cobalt oxide (Li_xCoO₂), used in the cathode material of lithium ion batteries, at the atomic level for the first time and revealed that the surface CoO₂ layer shows metallic and insulating phases, indicating the coexistence of ordered and disordered Li ions in the subsurface layer.

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