Solid-State Electrolysis in CuBr Thin Films: Observation and Modelling of Fractal Growth

The Fast Charge Transfer Kinetics of the Lithium Metal Anode on the Garnet‐Type Solid Electrolyte Li6.25Al0.25La3Zr2O12

“…This is in agreement with a recent paper, in which lithium nucleation was observed to occur preferably at surface irregularities. [47] At higher overpotentials, the increase of the current goes along with an emerging lateral (fractal) [48] growth mode, which is facilitated at higher overpotentials. Using Faraday's law, the inspection of the growth rate allows calculating the local current density (see Equation (S6), Supporting Information).…”

“…This phenomenon is called diffusion-limited aggregation and was also found for copper growth on mixed conducting CuBr films. [48] For fully dense single grain substrate regions, lateral growth toward the counter electrode was the dominant failure mode causing short circuits. However, for polycrystalline materials with a grain size of 10 µm, intergranular and intragranular crack formation close to the micromanipulator tip and crack propagating to the counter electrode were found to dominate cell failure (see Figure 3d-f; Videos S5 and S6, Supporting Information).…”

Sharp-interface model of electrodeposition and ramified growth

“…For well over a century it has been known, however, that the layer deposited during electrodeposition is prone to morphological instabilities, leading to ramified growth of the electrode surface. Over the years, many experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies have been devoted to increasing the understanding of this ramified growth regime [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Big contributions to our understanding of the growth process have come from diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) models [21,22] and, more recently, phasefield models similar to those that have successfully been applied to solidification problems [23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Solid‐State Ionics: Roots, Status, and Future Prospects

“…291 Numerical simulation techniques also have been used to model the conductivity of ionic conductor-insulator composites, especially near the percolation threshold, 87 and fractal decomposition structures observed after solid-state electrolysis of CuBr films at large direct-current voltage. 292 One major goal of computational materials science is the predictive capability. Ceder et al 161 gave a spectacular example for that when they first calculated that the addition of Al 2 O 3 to a solid solution of Li x CoO 2 , intended as cathode materials in Li --ion batteries, would lead to a significant enhancement of the opencircuit voltage.…”