Conformal coating of thin polymer electrolyte layer on nanostructured electrode materials for three-dimensional battery applications

Various three-dimensional (3D) battery architectures have been proposed to address effective power delivery in micro/ nanoscale devices and for increasing the stored energy per electrode footprint area. One step toward obtaining 3D configurations in batteries is the formation of core- shell nanowires that combines electrode and electrolyte materials. One of the major challenges however in creating such architectures has been the coating of conformal thin nanolayers of polymer electrolytes around nanostructured electrodes. Here we show conformal coatings of 25 - 30 nm poly(methyl methacralate) electrolyte layers around individual Ni - Sn nanowires used as anodes for Li ion battery. This configuration shows high discharge capacity and excellent capacity retention even at high rates over extended cycling, allowing for scalable increase in areal capacity with electrode thickness. Our results demonstrate conformal nanoscale anode - electrolyte architectures for an efficient Li ion battery system.