Taming Metal-Solid Electrolyte Interface Instability via Metal Strain Hardening

Solid-state lithium metal batteries have emerged as a promising technology for electric vehicles due to their high specific energy and safety potential. Obtaining intimate contact between Li and electrolyte during cell fabrication, however, remains challenging. Adequate fabrication pressure is required to promote close contact, but this pressure can cause Li deformation and penetration into the electrolyte, resulting in poor battery performance. Here, a strategy for addressing this problem is presented by incorporating 3 at% Mg into Li. Unlike pure Li which obeys the Voce hardening law and allows unconstrained deformation, LiMg alloy follows the Swift hardening law and strengthens with strain under compression stress. Because of the constrained deformation of LiMg, intimate contact with solid electrolytes is possible even at high fabrication pressure (50-65 MPa), resulting in high critical current densities. These findings underscore the importance of understanding Li metal deformation properties to improve solid-state battery performance.