LAUSR

During electrochemical cycling of Li-ion batteries, microstructural changes can lead to a loss of energy and power, especially under rapid charging. Changes in performance are often nonuniform as a result of inhomogeneous degradation in which some local regions in battery electrodes may experience more significant degradation than other regions. This inhomogeneous deterioration has been studied using a variety of approaches including, for example, X-ray diffraction [1], transmission X-ray microscopy and tomography [2,3], and transmission electron microscopy [4,5]. FIB-SEM provides a powerful, complementary way to explore microstructure by providing the capability to look at a material in crosssection, especially in conjunction with other techniques such as Raman that can reveal subtle variations in composition and chemistry [6].