Laser-Enabled Solid-Solid Interface Engineering for Electrochemical Energy Storage: Nonequilibrium Evolution and Cross-System Strategies

Solid-solid interfaces (SSIs) govern contact continuity, ion/electron transport, and long-term stability in electrochemical energy-storage devices. Laser processing delivers localized, transient, programmable energy to regulate these interfaces. It can generate nanoscale nonequilibrium structural-chemical states while tuning microscale contact geometry and stress. This review frames laser-enabled SSI engineering as the control of nonequilibrium interfacial evolution. It first examines how laser-matter interactions regulate defects, phases, morphology, chemical states, and stress. It then compares four major strategies, including laser texturing (LT), laser-induced modification (LIM), laser sintering (LS), and pulsed laser deposition (PLD) across solid-state batteries (SSBs), conventional rechargeable batteries (CRBs), and supercapacitors (SCs). LT reshapes contact topography, LIM modifies defects and surface chemistry, LS joins and densifies solids, and PLD constructs controlled films or interlayers. Their functions overlap; final performance depends on whether the induced interfacial state relieves the dominant constraint. The resulting Constraint-Physics-Evolution-Strategy (CPES) framework provides a cross-system basis for linking dominant interfacial constraints to their physical origins, required evolution, and compatible laser strategies. Building on this framework, future work should establish measurable descriptors, dynamic characterization, multiscale modeling, and closed-loop optimization to develop transferable parameter-evolution-performance relationships.