Low dimensional nanostructures of fast ion conducting lithium nitride

Tapia-Ruiz, Nuria and Gordon, Alexandra and Jewell, Catherine and Edwards, Hannah and Dunnill, Charles and Blackman, James and Snape, Colin and Brown, Paul and MacLaren, Ian and Baldoni, Matteo and Besley, Elena and Titman, Jeremy and Gregory, Duncan (2020) Low dimensional nanostructures of fast ion conducting lithium nitride. Nature Communications, 11: 4492. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

As the only stable binary compound formed between an alkali metal and nitrogen, lithium nitride possesses remarkable properties and is a model material for energy applications involving the transport of lithium ions. Following a materials design principle drawn from broad structural analogies to hexagonal graphene and boron nitride, we demonstrate that such low dimensional structures can also be formed from an s-block element and nitrogen. Both one- and two-dimensional nanostructures of lithium nitride, Li3N, can be grown despite the absence of an equivalent van der Waals gap. Lithium-ion diffusion is enhanced compared to the bulk compound, yielding materials with exceptional ionic mobility. Li3N demonstrates the conceptual assembly of ionic inorganic nanostructures from monolayers without the requirement of a van der Waals gap. Computational studies reveal an electronic structure mediated by the number of Li-N layers, with a transition from a bulk narrow-bandgap semiconductor to a metal at the nanoscale.