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Updated: Aug 14, 2025
Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Spatially resolved structural order in low-temperature liquid electrolyte
Yujun Xie1,2,3, Jingyang Wang3,4, Benjamin H Savitzky2
1Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Abstract:
Determining the degree and the spatial extent of structural order in liquids is a grand challenge. Here, we are able to resolve the structural order in a model organic electrolyte of 1 M lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) dissolved in 1:1 (v/v) ethylene carbonate:diethylcarbonate by developing an integrated method of liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cryo-TEM operated at -30°C, four-dimensional scanning TEM, and data analysis based on deep learning. This study reveals the presence of short-range order (SRO) in the high-salt concentration domains of the liquid electrolyte from liquid phase separation at the low temperature. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest the SRO originates from the Li+-(PF6-) (n > 2) local structural order induced by high LiPF6 salt concentration.
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