Yifei Mo

Yifei Mo

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland.

Advanced Solid Electrolytes Break World Record for Ionic Conductivity

less than 1 minute read

Published:

A team led by Professor Yifei Mo, together with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has pushed the ionic conductivity of halide solid electrolytes to a new record by strategically tuning how anions move within the crystal lattice.

The work, published in Nature Chemistry, improved conductivity by more than two orders of magnitude over prior halide electrolytes, reaching room-temperature conductivities up to 11 mS/cm in mixed-anion variants — surpassing all previously reported values, and building on the halide solid electrolyte chemistry Panasonic introduced in 2018.

Combining synchrotron X-ray and neutron scattering with ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, the team found that collective anion motion drives the superionic transition responsible for fast ion transport. By tuning these anion dynamics, they lowered the transition temperature enough to achieve high conductivity at room temperature.

“This discovery provides a new pathway in the design of novel solid-state electrolytes.” — Yifei Mo

The result is a step toward practical, high-performance solid-state lithium-ion batteries for next-generation energy storage.

Read the full story at the UMD MSE news page.

You May Also Enjoy

New Oxyhalide Electrolyte Breaks Barriers for Solid-State Battery Performance

1 minute read

Published:

A team led by Professor Yifei Mo, working with the University of Western Ontario and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has developed a new class of oxyhalide solid electrolytes that combine fast lithium-ion transport with strong chemical stability — two properties that have historically been difficult to achieve in the same material.

New, Superfast Method for Ceramic Manufacturing Could Open Door to AI-Driven Materials Discovery

1 minute read

Published:

Conventional ceramic sintering — the firing step that hardens ceramic materials — typically takes hours, a bottleneck for developing new solid-electrolyte and other functional ceramics. A UMD team led by Professor Liangbing Hu reinvented the process into an ultrafast high-temperature sintering method, sandwiching a pressed ceramic pellet between carbon strips that heat it by radiation and conduction to temperatures up to 3,000°C in under 10 seconds — over 1,000 times faster than a traditional furnace.

The Battery Revolution

less than 1 minute read

Published:

Fires in phones, laptops, and even a jumbo jet share a common cause: the flammable liquid electrolyte inside conventional lithium-ion batteries. Alongside their fire risk, these batteries also fall short on charging speed and energy density — driving researchers to look for a safer, better alternative.