Textured lithium ceramics prepared by gas-solid reactive sintering

Textured ceramics with anisotropic ionic conductivity are poised to establish superior ion transport pathways in solid-state electrochemical devices. However, their preparation methods remain a challenge. Here, we develop a gas-solid reactive sintering technique that successfully fabricates a variety of textured lithium ceramics, including electrolyte and electrode materials. These textured lithium ceramic electrolytes exhibit large columnar grains perpendicular to the surface. The textured electrodes indicate an out-of-plane crystallographic texture. As a result, the Li-ion transport pathways across the grain boundary plane are avoided in the textured lithium ceramic with low tortuosity, resulting in great ionic conductivity enhancement by 42 times compared to its traditional equiaxed counterpart. In addition, both Monte Carlo simulation and finite element analysis support the experimental results. This innovative gas-solid reactive sintering technique can extend to prepare various structured and functional ceramics with tailored structures and properties.