Journal Article
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, iss. 47, pp. 13324-13329, 2016
Authors
Venkateshkumar Prabhakaran, Grant E. Johnson, Bingbing Wang, Julia Laskin
Abstract
Significance
In situ characterization of kinetics at electrode–electrolyte interfaces (EEIs) is crucial to the rational design of efficient and sustainable solid-state electrochemical technologies. A significant advancement has been made to rationally understand processes at EEIs using solid-state in situ thin-film electrochemical cells fabricated using specially designed ionic liquid membranes with excellent mass-transfer properties. The in situ cells are used to characterize well-defined EEIs generated using ion soft-landing (SL) in controlled environments, both in vacuum and in the presence of reactant gases. Populating EEIs with precisely defined electroactive species using SL facilitates molecular-level understanding of electron transfer processes within deposited species and between species and electrodes, thus providing a powerful methodology to characterize technologically relevant EEIs during operation.
