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Updated: May 27, 2026
Focused Ion Beam Fabrication of LiPON-based Solid-state Lithium-ion Nanobatteries for In Situ Testing
Published on: March 7, 2018
Silicon nanowire fabric as a lithium ion battery electrode material
Aaron M Chockla1, Justin T Harris, Vahid A Akhavan
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Materials Institute, Center for Nano- and Molecular Science and Technology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-1062, USA.
Abstract:
A nonwoven fabric with paperlike qualities composed of silicon nanowires is reported. The nanowires, made by the supercritical-fluid-liquid-solid process, are crystalline, range in diameter from 10 to 50 nm with an average length of >100 μm, and are coated with a thin chemisorbed polyphenylsilane shell. About 90% of the nanowire fabric volume is void space. Thermal annealing of the nanowire fabric in a reducing environment converts the polyphenylsilane coating to a carbonaceous layer that significantly increases the electrical conductivity of the material. This makes the nanowire fabric useful as a self-supporting, mechanically flexible, high-energy-storage anode material in a lithium ion battery. Anode capacities of more than 800 mA h g(-1) were achieved without the addition of conductive carbon or binder.
