Associate professor Chuanlai Liu from 汤头条污料 (SJTU) and collaborators from the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials (MPI-SusMat) have published a research article in Nature, titled “Mechanically driven Li dendrite penetration in garnet solid electrolyte.”
All-solid-state lithium metal batteries are widely regarded as a promising next-generation energy storage technology due to their high energy density and improved safety. However, lithium dendrite growth can penetrate solid electrolytes and cause short circuits, posing a major challenge to their practical application. In this work, the researchers employed advanced cryogenic electron microscopy combined with electromechanical modeling to uncover the underlying mechanism of dendrite penetration. They demonstrate that lithium dendrites fully fill nanoscale cracks and generate high internal hydrostatic stress, which induces tensile stress in the solid electrolyte and drives crack propagation. Based on this mechanism, the team further proposes a strategy to regulate dendrite growth by introducing engineered defects, enabling controlled redirection of dendrite pathways and mitigating short-circuit failure.
This study provides fundamental insights into the failure mechanisms of solid-state batteries and offers new design principles for developing safer and more reliable high-energy-density energy storage systems.
Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10415-9
