Influence of Film Thickness on the Electrochemical Performance of α-SiOx Thin-film Anodes

doi:10.15541/jim20180227

Abstract

Abstract:

SiO_x anodes of lithium ion batteries have attracted considerable attention in recent years, due to their cycle stability, large capacity, and feasibility on composition manipulation. Many previous works have focused on clarifying the influences of oxygen contents on SiO_x based anodes. However, the size effect is still far from understanding. Herein, the size effect on electrochemical properties of SiO_x with thin-film type anodes in different thickness was investigated. It is found that the SiO_x electrodes prepared by sputtering is of a Si/O ratio of 0.7 and exhibits the highest initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) of 71.68% and the highest capacity retention of 92.01% when the film thickness being 450 nm, compared with those in other thickness. The best performance under such intriguing thickness-performance relationship is attributed to the low charge transfer resistance, formation of the reduced SEI layer and good electrode integrity upon cycling, as evidenced by SEM images and EIS collected during cycling. These results indicate that as anodes of LIBs, the SiO_x anodes with controlled size can greatly improve the electrochemical performance.

Key words: SiO_x thin-film anodes, film thickness, cycle stability, capacity, lithium-ion batteries

CLC Number:

TQ174

MENG Xiang-Lu, HUO Han-Yu, GUO Xiang-Xin, DONG Shao-Ming. Influence of Film Thickness on the Electrochemical Performance of α-SiO_x Thin-film Anodes[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2018, 33(10): 1141-1146.

Figures/Tables 6

Fig. 1 Characterization of the deposited SiOx film electrodes. (a) The typical surface morphology of SiO0.7 thin film deposited on rough Cu foil; (b) Cross section SEM image of the SiO0.7 thin film deposited on Si wafer; (c) XRD patterns of the SiO0.7 thin films with a thickness of 450 nm; (d) Raman spectra of as-deposited SiO0.7 with a thickness of 450 nm; (e) XPS Si 2p spectral of the SiO0.7 thin films with a thickness of 450 nm, which is fitted by using five Si peaks

Fig. 2 The 1st cycle charge-discharge curves of SiO0.7 film electrodes with different thickness of 90 nm, 270 nm, 450 nm and 630 nm

Fig. 3 Cyclic voltammograms of SiO0.7 film electrode with thickness of (a) 90 nm and (b) 450 nm of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th cycle at a scan rate of 0.05 mV•s-1 in the potential range of 0.01 V-1.5 V

Fig. 4 Electrochemical performances of SiO0.7 film anodes with different thickness(a) Cycle performance of SiO0.7 thin film anodes with different thickness at the current density of 0.2C; (b,c) The Nyquist plots of the SiO0.7 thin film anodes with different thickness after (b) the 1st cycle and (c) the 200th cycle; (d-g) Surface morphologies of the 200th-cycled SiO0.7 thin film anodes with thickness of 90 nm, 270 nm, 450 nm, and 630 nm

Fig. S1 (a) The galvanostatic discharge-charge voltage profiles of the SiO0.7 anodes with a thickness of 450 nm of 1st, 10th, 100th, 200th and 300th cycle and (b) the dQ/dV differential curve of the first cycle profile of the SiO0.7 anodes with a thickness of 450 nm

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