Crystalline-Amorphous Core−Shell Silicon Nanowires for High Capacity and High Current Battery Electrodes

Silicon is an attractive alloy-type anode material for lithium ion batteries because of its highest known capacity (4200 mAh/g). However silicon's large volume change upon lithium insertion and extraction, which causes pulverization and capacity fading, has limited its applications. Designing nanoscale hierarchical structures is a novel approach to address the issues associated with the large volume changes. In this letter, we introduce a core-shell design of silicon nanowires for highpower and long-life lithium battery electrodes. Silicon crystalline-amorphous core-shell nanowires were grown directly on stainless steel current collectors by a simple one-step synthesis. Amorphous Si shells instead of…