Article abstract
Nature Materials 1, 123 - 128 (2002)
Published online: 22 September 2002 | doi:10.1038/nmat732
Subject Categories: Ceramics | Electronic materials | Materials for energy
Electronically conductive phospho-olivines as lithium storage electrodes
Sung-Yoon Chung1, Jason T. Bloking1 & Yet-Ming Chiang1
Abstract
Lithium transition metal phosphates have become of great interest as storage cathodes for rechargeable lithium batteries because of their high energy density, low raw materials cost, environmental friendliness and safety. Their key limitation has been extremely low electronic conductivity, until now believed to be intrinsic to this family of compounds. Here we show that controlled cation non-stoichiometry combined with solid-solution doping by metals supervalent to Li+ increases the electronic conductivity of LiFePO4 by a factor of 
108. The resulting materials show near-theoretical energy density at low charge/discharge rates, and retain significant capacity with little polarization at rates as high as 6,000 mA g-1. In a conventional cell design, they may allow development of lithium batteries with the highest power density yet.
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
Correspondence to: Yet-Ming Chiang1 e-mail: ychiang@mit.edu
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