The Roles of Intermediate Phases of Li-Si Alloy as Anode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

Abstract An ab initio method of the first-principles plane-wave pseudopotentials based on the density functional theory has been used to calculate the physical character and electrochemical performance of various alloy phases in Li-Si alloy. The results show that besides the growth of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), the formation of Li12Si7 alloy phase also partly leads to the initial irreversible capacity loss. In addition, the pure silicon thin film electrode was prepared by the radio frequency (RF) magnetic sputtering on copper foil collector as anode materials. The structural and electrochemical characteristics of Li-Si alloy were examined using X-ray diffraction (XRD), cyclic voltammogram (CV) and repeatedly constant current charge/discharge (CC). The results show that the first irreversible capacity loss is very large and amorphous structure can accommodate the large volume expansions and improve cyclic performance.