Kinetics of lithium dendrite growth in garnet-type solid electrolyte

Abstract Stiff Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) is promising in preventing lithium dendrite and reviving lithium metal anode. Practically, lithium dendrites are still observed in LLZO-based cells. Therefore, investigation on dendrite growth feasibility and its kinetics in LLZO is important and critical. However, it is still short of deep insight and very difficult to get direct in situ evidence about dendrite growth kinetics theoretically and experimentally. Herein, we investigate the lithium dendrite growth kinetics as well as evaluate those important parameters such as LLZO thickness and dwell time to short circuit. Our results show that lithium dendrite exhibits a steady growth in LLZO, and the growth rate is proportional to the applied current density in a specific range of current density. The finding shed light on fundamental understanding of kinetics of lithium dendrite growth in LLZO, and the strategies can be easily expanded to other kind of solid electrolytes.