Seeking Order in Complex Electrochemical Interfaces: Insights for Energy Conversion Devices

Understanding electrochemical interfaces on an atomistic level is key for rapidly pushing electrochemical energy conversion devices toward their physical limits. Yet interfaces of electrochemical devices typically exhibit a high degree of structural complexity, which slows down or impedes a detailed understanding from both computational and experimental approaches. A major bottleneck is the vastly different levels of complexity represented in electronic structure methods and experiment. This limits the materials that can be studied at the same complexity level to systems, where a minimum degree of order can be preserved in experiment. For many electrochemical systems, however, it is currently unknown if experimental parameters exist at all, where highly ordered interfaces can be prepared. In this Perspective, we will discuss approaches for the rapid identification of such highly ordered interfaces in complex systems, establishing them as suitable starting points for experimental and computational in-depth studies.