Pulsed Laser Deposition as a Tool for the Development of All Solid-State Microbatteries

All-solid-state lithium ion batteries (LIB) are currently the most promising technology for next generation electrochemical energy storage. Many efforts have been devoted in the past years to improve performance and safety of these devices. Nevertheless, issues regarding chemical and mechanical stability of the different components still hinder substantial improvements. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) has proved to be an outstanding technique for the deposition of thin films of materials of interest for the fabrication of LIB. Thanks to its versatility and possible fine tuning of the thin film properties, PLD promises to be a very powerful tool for the fabrication of model systems which would allow to study in detail material properties and mechanisms contributing to LIB degradation. Nevertheless, PLD presents difficulties in the deposition of LIB components, mainly due to the presence of elements with large difference of atomic mass in their chemical composition. In this review, we report the main challenges and solution strategies used for the deposition through PLD of complex oxides thin films for LIB.

Automated summary

All-solid-state lithium ion batteries are the most promising technology for future electrochemical energy storage, but challenges related to chemical and mechanical stability still hinder substantial improvements. Pulsed laser deposition has shown to be an excellent technique for depositing thin films of materials needed for LIB, but faces difficulties in depositing LIB components due to differences in atomic mass.