Intrinsic Properties of Nanostructured Solid-State Ionic Conductors

Abstract

Multiphase solid-state nanostructured conductors are of continued interest for their
potential application in fuel cells, batteries, water filtration, supercapacitors, and
semiconductors technologies. Multiphase materials can enable advance properties that
cannot be achieved without structure. The effect of the nanostructure on ionic transport,
charge transfer, and interfacial process, however, can be complex due to the inability of
traditional ‘bulk’ experiments to directly correlate between the ionic phenomena and the
structure properties.

I will demonstrate that by using advance polymerization, self-assembly and nanofabrication
methods I can design structured systems with deterministically defined ionic pathways,
interfaces, and chemophysical properties that enable me to isolate, visualize and quantify
ionic phenomena at the nanoscale level.

In the first part of my talk, I will address the use of phase-separated block copolymer
electrolytes (BCEs) as ion conducting membranes. I will demonstrate how I can quantify
their intrinsic ion transport properties at the nanoscale level using thin-film self-assembly
methods. In the second part of my talk, I will highlight the advantages of using custom
nanofabricated structured electrolytes platforms to identify universality in
electrodeposition behaviors within nanoconfined polymeric structures.