Pressure Monitoring Cell for Constrained Battery Electrodes.

Testing of improved battery components and new electrochemical energy storage materials in a coin cell format as a test cell is becoming the state of the art. The pressure on the electrode surfaces inside an electrochemical cell is one of the important parameters for high ionic/electronic conductivity and the cyclic lifetime. A self-designed pressure monitoring cell allows both applying an adjustable pressure and monitoring the state of charge-dependent cell pressure during cycling. The load cell shows a reciprocal behavior of the temperature sensitivity dependent on the ambient temperature and requires constant temperature conditions while monitoring the cell pressure. Further, dependent on the initial cell pressure, the relaxation time of the assembled pressure monitoring cell must be considered. The present paper describes the setup, the influence of the environment temperature and the mechanical relaxation of the pressure monitoring cell. The first cycling results, using an NCM/graphite coin cell, demonstrate the functionality of the pressure monitoring cell measuring the cell's pressure as a function of the C-rate.

Pulsed Laser Porosification of Silicon Thin Films.

We present a new and simple laser-based process to porosify thin film silicon using a pulsed laser. During deposition, we incorporate gas atoms or molecules into the Si thin film. Pulsed laser radiation of wavelength λ = 532 nm heats up thin film Si beyond its melting point. Upon heating, gas atoms or molecules form nm-sized thermally expanding gas bubbles in the silicon melt, until they explosively exit the film, leaving pores behind. Rapid heating and fast cooling during pulsed laser processing enable re-solidification of the liquid Si before the created pores contract and pore closure occurs within the liquid phase. Optimized plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition or sputtering of amorphous Si thin films on stainless steel substrate incorporates the necessary concentration of gas atoms or molecules. We are able to tailor the pore size between 50 and 550 nm by changing laser pulse energy density and film deposition parameters. Evaporated silicon containing no gas atoms forms only a few very large µ m-sized gas bubbles due to laser-induced vapor formation of evaporated solid material at the substrate-silicon interface.