Anhydrous LiNbO 3 Synthesis and Its Application for Surface Modification of Garnet Type Li-Ion Conductors

Abstract

In our work we demonstrate a facile, water-free synthesis of amorphous lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ) layers. Our developed method also enables the coating of substrates in inert atmosphere with simple, industrial scalable methods. As verification, a 120 nm thin LiNbO 3 layer was deposited on the garnet type lithium ion conductor Li 6.45 Al 0.05 La 3 Zr 1.6 Ta 0.4 O 12 (LLZTO) to improve its interface to lithium metal and reduce dendrite formation. The application of the thin film reduced the interface resistance between LLZTO and lithium metal to 1.02(13) Ω∙cm 2 and increased the critical current density for dendrite formation to at least 0.5 mA cm −2 . The chemical stability of the LiNbO 3 thin film in contact with Li-metal was verified by SEM, XPS and ToF-SIMS.