Strain Analysis on Electrochemical Failures of Nanoscale Silicon Electrode Based on Three-Dimensional In Situ Measurement

Abstract

Nanoscale silicon film electrodes in Li-ion battery undergo great deformations leading to electrochemical and mechanical failures during repeated charging-discharging cycles. In-situ experimental characterization of the stress/strain in those electrodes still faces big challenges due to remarkable complexity of stress/strain evolution while it is still hard to predict the association between the electrode cycle life and the measurable mechanical parameters. To quantificationally investigate the evolution of the mechanical parameters, we develop a new full field 3D measurement method combining digital image correlation with laser confocal profilometry and propose a strain criterion of the failure based on semi-quantitative analysis via mean strain gradient (MSG). The experimental protocol and results illustrate that the revolution of MSG correlates positively with battery capacity decay, which may inspire future studies in the field of film electrodes.