The Nano-Observer II's ResiScope technology represents a major breakthrough in energy storage research.
This novel atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique is completely changing the way scientists investigate polymer batteries at the nanoscale, offering new insights into the behavior of battery materials and potentially accelerating the development of next-generation energy storage solutions.
Advanced AFM for Battery Research: ResiScope™ III & Soft ResiScope Modes in Action
Video Credit: CSInstruments
Pushing Boundaries in Battery Characterization
The system’s most significant and noteworthy feature is its ability to detect currents from femtoamperes to microamperes in a single scan.
CSInstruments explains, "This range is crucial for battery research as battery materials often exhibit vastly different conductivity regions that traditional characterization methods struggle to capture simultaneously."
Revealing Hidden Properties with Multi-Modal Analysis
The Nano-Observer II has been utilized in several recent studies, demonstrating the advantages of combining multiple scanning modes.
ResiScope: Current and Resistance Mapping
ResiScope enables a thorough analysis of a material’s electrical properties, offering detailed insights into both current and resistance behavior.
Signal: Current from 2 pA to 3 µA, Scan size: 60 microns. Image Credit: CSInstruments
The example above features a 60-micron scan of a polymer battery sample, revealing current variations across six orders of magnitude (2 pA to 3 µA)—a level of detail that traditional techniques have struggled to achieve.
Understanding ResiScope: A Revolution in Electrical Characterization
The advanced ResiScope technology has been seamlessly integrated into the Nano-Observer II, setting a new standard for electrical characterization at the nanoscale.
Its capability to perform simultaneous current and resistance measurements across an unmatched range—from femtoamperes (fA) to microamperes (µA)—enables researchers to analyze materials with vastly different conductivity levels in a single scan.
This flexibility is particularly crucial in battery research, where materials often exhibit extreme variations in electrical behavior.
ResiScope’s ability to deliver high-resolution, multi-modal data has made it an essential tool for researchers seeking deeper insights into the electrical properties of advanced materials. By providing a more comprehensive understanding of conductivity variations, it lays the groundwork for the development of more durable and efficient energy storage solutions.
Soft ResiScope Mode
This specialized mode allows for detailed electrical characterization of delicate polymer battery materials while minimizing any potential impact on the samples.
Soft ResiScope current map, 50x50 microns. Image Credit: CSInstruments
The example presented above was performed on a 50-micron area of a solid-state polymer battery. A single conductive Pt/Ir tip was used to acquire three distinct types of measurements.
The current distribution map shows intricate variations in conductivity across the sample surface. High current regions reaching 68 nA are shown in red, while low current zones of approximately 1 pA are shown in blue.
Detailed current mapping like this affords battery researchers essential insights into local conductivity variations present within the battery material.
Resistance mapping complements current analysis, delivering quantitative measurements ranging from 26 MΩ to 373 GΩ. These measurements are shown via a carefully calibrated color scheme whereby blue areas represent higher resistance and red regions indicate lower resistance zones.
Soft ResiScope resistance map, 50x50 microns. Image Credit: CSInstruments
This resistance distribution data provides useful information on a material's electrical properties at the nanoscale.
This next example features a 20-micron area scan of the previously shown sample, divided into two distinct modes.
ResiScope™ III Mode was used to scan the lower half of the image, while the upper half was scanned using Soft ResiScope mode.
Image Credit: CSInstruments
These results effectively showcase the contrast between the two different techniques, highlighting Soft ResiScope’s differing mode of operation to ResiScope, which maintains direct contact with the sample throughout the scanning process.
HD-KFM (High-Definition Kelvin Force Microscopy)
This mode is ideally suited to mapping surface potential distributions.
HD-KFM surface potential map, 50x50 microns. Image Credit: CSInstruments
The example presented here used HD-KFM III to perform surface potential mapping. This third measurement adds a further dimension to the analysis, revealing charge distribution across the sample.
Potential variations are effectively visualized via the thermal color mapping scheme, providing key information about the material’s electronic properties.
Utilizing these three scanning modes offers researchers a comprehensive surface analysis toolkit, allowing them to correlate electrical, resistance, and potential measurements and offering never-before-seen insight into material behavior.
Advantages of Non-Destructive Analysis
A major benefit of the Soft ResiScope technique lies in its non-destructive nature. While traditional characterization methods can damage samples, the Soft ResiScope technique enables researchers to conduct repeated measurements on the same sample area with no risk of degradation.
This feature is key to the long-term study of battery material evolution during repeated charge-discharge cycles.
Key Applications in Battery Development
This advanced measurement technology is already proving invaluable across an array of battery research applications, including:
- Quality control applications: Nanoscale imaging allows manufacturing inconsistencies to be detected, avoiding adverse effects on battery performance.
- Material optimization applications: Detailed conductivity mapping supports researchers’ efforts in fine-tuning material compositions.
- Degradation studies: Tracking changes in electrical properties over time affords researchers valuable insights into battery aging mechanisms.
- Interface analysis applications: High-resolution imaging of electrode-electrolyte interfaces is key to better understanding charge transfer processes.
Real-World Impact
A recent study saw researchers employing multi-modal analysis in the investigation of a 50x50 micron area of a polymer battery sample.
The comprehensive combination of surface potential, resistance, and current distribution maps highlighted important correlations between electrical properties and material structure. Insights such as these are central to the development of more durable and efficient battery technologies.
Looking Ahead
The increasingly widespread integration of ResiScope technology into battery research applications represents a major advance in energy storage development.
Renewable energy storage and electric vehicles are set to become increasingly central to the global energy future, with these advanced characterization techniques anticipated to play a key role in accelerating the development of longer-lasting and better-performing batteries.
CSInstruments' Nano-Observer II with ResiScope capabilities is set to become an indispensable part of the battery researcher's toolkit, with its powerful combination of wide measurement range, high resolution, and non-destructive analysis capabilities making it uniquely suited for addressing the many challenges associated with next-generation energy storage development.
Acknowledgments
Produced from materials originally authored by CSInstruments.
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by CSInstruments.
For more information on this source, please visit CSInstruments.