Electrochemistry for Energy Storage and Information Processing

Welcome

We reside in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Our research combines the synthetic power of materials chemistry with the nanoscale precision of microelectronics, targeted towards the two grand challenges of energy storage and computing. We aim to develop fundamental mechanistic insights and rational design rules for improved devices. We practice hypothesis-based scientific inquiry combining observation, hypothesis, and experimental validation. Our research furthermore places a strong focus on statistics and data-driven experimental approaches.

Please click through this site to learn more about our work.

Information about joining the group:

Information about applying for an MS or PhD at the University of Michigan, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, can be found on this website: https://mse.engin.umich.edu/graduate/admissions. Prospective applicants are welcome to email Yiyang before or after they apply, but the admissions committee makes the admissions decisions, not individual faculty in the MSE department. This policy may be different at other universities and even other departments at the University of Michigan.

If you are an undergraduate or MS student at the University of Michigan who would like to work with us for credit, please read a published research paper from the group and email Yiyang with what kind of research you would like to work on. The paper should be a "research" and not a "review" or "perspective" article, and the first author should be a current or former student from our group. The first author should not be Yiyang.

If you are enrolled at a different institution, we can only accept visiting students as part of REU and other programs. Some information about REUs that we participate with are posted at https://reu.engin.umich.edu. Due to US labor and immigration laws, students who are not enrolled at a US university and who do not have qualified work authorization in the US are not allowed to conduct research in our lab, regardless of funding status, unless they have an existing collaboration with our group.

Email: yiyangli@umich.edu

News

Dongjae Shin wins Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship (12-March-2025)

Dongjae Shin wins the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship for the 2025-26 academic year. Dongjae is the second student in the group, after Jinhong Min, to win this prestigious dissertation fellowship.

Li+ Group attends Electronic Materials and Applications (27-February-2025).

Dongjae Shin, Andrew Jalbert, and Sangyong Lee attend the Electronic Materials and Applications (EMA) meeting in Denver, Colorado, presenting our group's work on microelectronics.

Dongjae Shin wins Helen & Rolf Illsley Scholarship (1-February-2025)

Dongjae Shin, a third-year Ph.D. student, received the Helen & Rolf Illsey Scholarship from the Society of Vacuum Coaters Foundation (SVCF). Dongjae is conducting research focused on vacuum deposition technologies, the findings from which could revolutionize applications in batteries, memories and synaptic transistors.

(more news)

Research Project Summary

All of our research projects relate to the overlap between microelectronics and batteries, two of the most important technologies of modern society. We believe that much can be learned by cross-pollinating ideas and concepts from one field onto the other.

Thermodyanamics and Kinetics of Oxygen Transport in Metal Oxides for Microelectronics

Metal oxides like Ta2O5, HfO2, and In2O3 are widely utilized in microelectronics, including diverse devices such as gate dielectrics, ferroelectrics, resistive memory, electrochemical memory, and thin-film transistors. Oxygen diffusion and migration play important roles in the functionality and the reliability of such devices. Our research aims to understand the thermodynamic and kinetic principles guiding oxygen transport in these transition , and use such principles to engineer new or improved microelectronic devices. We are particulary interested in oxygen transport kinetics in amorphous materials, which have very different transport compared to crystalline materials.

Recent highlights of our work include identifying phase separation in amorphous tantalum oxide as the key towards long retention time in resistive memory, utilizing this phase separation to engineer high-temperature nonvolatile electrochemical memory stable at 600C, and identifying differences in diffusion kinetics among sputtered and atomic layer deposited hafnium oxide.

Electrochemical random-access memory

We believe that the atom is the highest density information storage element. With over 106 atoms in a small (30-nm)3 volume, we anticipate that the ability to dynamically control the number of atomic point defects in materials can be used to achieve truly analog memory.

We developed the electrochemical random-access memory cell that will enable precise control of atoms in a memory device. By harnessing the ability to move atomic point defect in a device, we can develop truly nonvolatile analog memory.

Variability in Li-ion batteries

Li-ion batteries are made from micron-sized, redox-active particles in porous electrodes. However, while it is easy to measure differences in their size or morphology, it has not been possible to measure differences in electrochemical properties like lithium diffusion and interfacial reactivity.

To answer this question, we will quantify the electrochemical properties of individual battery particles, and correlate these properties with structural and compositional features. This research aims to determine how the composition and the microstructure of battery particles ultimately affect their electrochemical properties.

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