Dynamic Monkey Bar Mechanism of Superionic Li‐ion Transport in LiTaCl6

Abstract

AbstractThe LiTaCl6 solid electrolyte has the lowest activation energy of ionic conduction at ambient conditions (0.165 eV), with a record high ionic conductivity for a ternary compound (11 mS cm−1). However, the mechanism has been unclear. We train machine‐learning force fields (MLFF) on ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) data on‐the‐fly and perform MLFF MD simulations of AIMD quality up to the nanosecond scale at the experimental temperatures, which allows us to predict accurate activation energy for Li‐ion diffusion (at 0.164 eV). Detailed analyses of trajectories and vibrational density of states show that the large‐amplitude vibrations of Cl− ions in TaCl6− enable the fast Li‐ion transport by allowing dynamic breaking and reforming of Li−Cl bonds across the space in between the TaCl6− octahedra. We term this process the dynamic‐monkey‐bar mechanism of superionic Li+ transport which could aid the development of new solid electrolytes for all‐solid‐state lithium batteries.