Li Jump Diffusion and Long-Range Transport in Garnet Single Crystals: Spanning the kHz–GHz Range

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Understanding and controlling Li-ion transport in garnet-type oxides is central to advancing solid electrolytes for all-solid-state energy storage systems. Garnet electrolytes have long been recognized for their high ionic conductivity, and the availability of large single crystals now enables a direct, frequency-resolved view of Li-ion dynamics over a broad time window. In such structurally and chemically homogeneous systems, responses from electrical and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements are expected to align, yielding a consistent picture of frequency-dependent Li-ion hopping processes. Here, we investigate single-crystalline Li 6.5 La 3 Zr 1.5 Ta 0.5 O 12 and probe ion dynamics from the kHz to GHz range using a combination of 7 Li nuclear spin relaxation (NSR) and electrical conductivity spectroscopy. Long-range transport (5 × 10 –4 S cm –1 at 293 K) is consistently described by activation energies in the range of 0.41 to 0.47 eV, whereas localized ion dynamics, observed, e.g., by laboratory-frame NSR, are associated with much lower barriers of approximately 0.22 eV. In comparison with single-crystalline Li 6 La 3 ZrTaO 12, which exhibits reduced ionic mobility, we propose that changes in ionic mobility are compensated by a higher effective charge-carrier concentration N c in systems with lower Li contents. For Li 6.5 La 3 Zr 1.5 Ta 0.5 O 12, the Li + mobility is higher by approximately 1 order of magnitude; however, the resulting conductivity only slightly exceeds that of Li 6 La 3 ZrTaO 12, presumably due to a lower density of mobile charge carriers. This finding highlights that N c is a key parameter to consider in these systems that indeed sensitively governs the practical ionic conductivity.