Monday, 14 May 2018
Ballroom 6ABC (Washington State Convention Center)
A process for fabricating thin film solid state battery on four-inch silicon wafer has been developed in a custom built hybrid PVD configuration in a single chamber attached to a glove box. In this work, we have performed six layer deposition, which includes Lithium evaporation in the same chamber. As the cathode current collector, Aluminum of 2-5 microns thick, was deposited using specially designed compact thermal evaporation sources, after aluminium deposition thin layer metallic nickel or cobalt was used as the barrier for Lithium cobalt oxide cathode. The total thickness of the thin film solid state battery is 15-18 micron, with a specific capacity between 50-80 µAh-Cm2. The capacity of the batteries reduced to 20-30 percent from the initial capacity after 100 cycles. Some batteries were cycled up to 15,000 cycles and the capacity fading is about 50-60 percent. Based on different studies, we have established the protocol to make reliable thin film battery processing using custom built PVD system in the laboratory scale. The investigations have shown degradation due to the intrinsic material limitations rather than process induced degradation.