Inorganic Battery Materials

Application of In Situ Electrochemical-Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy for the Study of Rechargeable Batteries

Wentao Yao

Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA

and

Reza Shahbazian-Yassar

University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

1. 1 Introduction
2. 2 Application in Lithium‐Ion Batteries
3. 3 Application in Metal–Air Batteries
4. 4 Conclusions and Outlook
5. 5 Acknowledgments
6. Related Article
7. 7 Abbreviations and Acronyms
8. 8 References

1 Introduction

Ever since its invention in the 1930s, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has found its crucial role as a major analytical technique in the field of materials science, physics, chemistry, and biological sciences. Compared with other analytical tools, such as, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), TEM has several advantages (i) ability to identify the crystalline phase, atomic order and defects, and chemical signature of materials. Unlike SEM, which uses scattered electrons for surface imaging, TEM utilizes the electrons that pass through thin samples to construct images. The transmitted electrons contain not only morphology information of the samples but also local information about atomic orders, the identity of atoms, crystal orientations, and internal defects. (ii) Ultra‐high spatial and analytical resolutions for imaging and spectroscopy. Recent development in aberration correction techniques has successfully brought the resolution of scanning transmission electron microscopy ...