Lithium diffusion & magnetism in battery cathode material LixNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2

Abstract

We have studied low-temperature magnetic properties as well as high-temperature lithium ion diffusion in the battery cathode materials LixNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 by the use of muon spin rotation/relaxation. Our data reveal that the samples enter into a 2D spin-glass state below TSG 12 K. We further show that lithium diffusion channels become active for T ≥ Tdiff ∼ 125 K where the Li-ion hopping-rate [v(T)] starts to increase exponentially. Further, v(T) is found to fit very well to an Arrhenius type equation and the activation energy for the diffusion process is extracted as Ea 100 meV.