Asylum Research has announced the Electrochemical Strain Microscopy (ESM) imaging technique for its Cypher and MFP-3D AFMs, to assist scientists in researching energy storage.
Developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Asylum Research, ESM is a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique capable of probing electrochemical reactivity and ionic flows in solids on the sub-ten-nanometre level.
ESM is the first technique that measures ionic currents directly, providing a new tool for mapping electrochemical phenomena on the nanoscale.
The capability to probe electrochemical processes and ionic transport in solids is invaluable for a broad range of applications for energy generation and storage, ranging from batteries to fuel cells.
ESM has the potential to aid in these advances with two major improvements over other conventional technologies: first, the resolution to probe nanometre-scale volumes, and second, the inherent ability to decouple ionic from electronic currents.
It does this with imaging capability extended to a broad range of spectroscopy techniques reminiscent of conventional electrochemical tools.
Nina Balke of ORNL will be presenting recent results at the International Workshop on Scanning Probe Microscopy for Energy Applications in Mainz, Germany, 8-10 June 2011.
According to Asylum, ESM provides functional imaging of electrochemical phenomena in volumes millions to a billion times smaller than conventional current-based electrochemical techniques.
This new technique makes it possible to understand energy technology and ionic devices on the level of individual grains and defects, thus bridging macroscopic functionalities and atomistic mechanisms.
This could lead to improved energy-storage devices, such as batteries with very high energy densities and long lifetimes.
Traditionally, scanning probe microscopy techniques allowed measurement of electronic currents and short- and long-range forces.
ESM extends this capability to measure ionic currents, and has already been demonstrated for a variety of Li-ion cathode, anode and electrolyte materials, as well as oxygen electrolytes and mixed electronic-ionic conductors.
Furthermore, the use of band excitation and DART engines allows measurements to be performed on rough surfaces of realistic electrochemical materials, making ESM suitable for use on real materials and devices.
