Origin of fast ion diffusion in super-ionic conductors.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28635958.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms15893 and PMC identifier 5482052.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Super-ionic conductor materials have great potential to enable novel technologies in energy storage and conversion. However, it is not yet understood why only a few materials can deliver exceptionally higher ionic conductivity than typical solids or how one can design fast ion conductors following simple principles. Using ab initio modelling, here we show that fast diffusion in super-ionic conductors does not occur through isolated ion hopping as is typical in solids, but instead proceeds through concerted migrations of multiple ions with low energy barriers. Furthermore, we elucidate that the low energy barriers of the concerted ionic diffusion are a result of unique mobile ion configurations and strong mobile ion interactions in super-ionic conductors. Our results provide a general framework and universal strategy to design solid materials with fast ionic diffusion.