The development of long-term stable Zn anodes capable of operating at high current densities and/or capacities remains a huge challenge. Herein, through the rapid potassium permanganate solution treatment and laser lithography, we have developed a gradient Zn anode (LLP@Treated Zn) with the insulating and hydrophobic passivated-layer at the top and conductive and hydrophilic fresh-zinc-layer at the bottom. This makes the passivation layer prevent the Zn anodes from corrosion and side reactions and induce the preferential deposition of Zn at the bottom of the microchannel without dendrite growth. As a consequence, the LLP@Treated Zn anodes exhibit a stable cycle life for over 700 h at 10 mA cm–2 and 5 mAh cm–2. Moreover, the Zn anodes with different surface morphologies (ring, lattice, etc.) could also be obtained by laser lithography, which proves the flexibility of the pulsed laser lithography strategy in the preparation of battery materials.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.