by Minghao Zhang, Karnpiwat Tantratian, So-Yeon Ham, Zhuo Wang, Mehdi Chouchane, Ryosuke Shimizu, Shuang Bai, Hedi Yang, Zhao Liu, Letian Li, Amir Avishai, Lei Chen, Ying Shirley Meng
Soft metals like lithium and sodium play a critical role in battery technology owing to their high-energy density. Texture formation by grain selection growth of soft metals during electrochemical processes is a crucial factor affecting power and safety. Here, a general thermodynamic theory and phase-field model are formulated to study the grain selection growth of soft metals. Our study focuses on the interplay between surface energy and atomic mobility-related intrinsic strain energy in grain selection growth. Differences in grain selection growth arise from the anisotropy in surface energy and the diffusion barrier of soft metal atoms. Our findings highlight the kinetic limitations of solid-state Li metal batteries, which originate from load stress-induced surface energy anisotropy. These insights lead to the development of an amorphous LixSi1?x (0.50 < x < 0.79) seed layer, improving the critical current density at room temperature for anode-free Li solid-state batteries through the control of grain selection growth.