(ORNL: Oak Ridge, TN) -- A team of scientists led by a professor from Duke University discovered a way to help make batteries safer, charge faster, and last longer. They relied on neutrons at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to understand, at the atomic scale, how lithium moves in lithium phosphorus sulfur chloride (Li₆PS₅Cl), a promising new type of solid-state battery material known as a superionic compound.

Using neutrons at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and machine-learned molecular dynamics simulations at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, they found that lithium ions easily diffused in the solid material, as they do in liquid electrolytes, allowing faster, safer charging. The results, published in Nature Physics, could bring the best of both worlds for solid-state electrolytes (SSEs), enabling next-generation batteries.

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