Electromechanical Probing of Ionic Currents in Energy Storage Materials

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of electromechanical probing techniques, such as interferometry and atomic force microscopy, to analyze ionic currents and electrochemical reactions in energy storage materials, offering potentially higher resolution than traditional impedance methods.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of electromechanical strain response measurements against electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for nanoscale energy storage materials.

Findings

Electromechanical strain response can be used to detect ionic currents.

Electromechanical methods offer higher spatial resolution than impedance spectroscopy.

Detection limits vary between interferometric and atomic force microscopy techniques.

Abstract

The electrochemical processes in energy storage materials are generally linked with changes of molar volume of the host compound. Here, the frequency dependent strain response of 1D electrochemically active systems to periodic electric bias is analyzed. The sensitivity and resolution of these electrochemical strain measurements are compared to the current-based electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The resolution and detection limits of interferometric and atomic force microscopy based systems for probing electrochemical reactions on the nanoscale are analyzed.