High lithium ion conductivity glass-ceramics in Li2O-Al2O3-TiO2-P2O5 from nanoscaled glassy powders by mechanical milling

Mechanical milling (MM) has been used to prepare the nanosized Li1.4Al0.4Ti1.6(PO4)(3) (denoted LATP) glassy powders which was converted into glass-ceramics through thermal treating at 700-1000 degrees C. The XRD, TEM, FESEM and ac impedance techniques were used to characterize the products. The results showed that completely amorphous products were prepared by MM for 40h, and single-phase LiT2(PO4)(3)-type structured glass-ceramics were obtained by further heat treatment. The lithium ion conductivity of the glass-ceramics increased with the growth of the crystalline phase and decrease of the grain size. The highest bulk conductivity (sigma(b)) of 1.09 x 10(-3) S cm(-1) with an energy of activation as low as 0.28 eV was obtained at room temperature for the specimen treated at 900 degrees C for 6h. The high conductivity, easy fabrication and low cost make the LATP glass-ceramics promising to be used as inorganic solid electrolyte for all-solid-state Li-ion rechargeable batteries. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.