Alloy Formation in Nanostructured Silicon

The first systematic study on alloy formation on well-defined nanostructured materialshas been conducted by these authors. Nanostructured silicon and germanium materials were reacted with lithium metal by solid-state chemistry and electrochemical methods, in which nanocrystalline Si (unlike bulk material) forms Li–Si alloys already at room temperature. The Li–Si(Ge) alloys have interesting electrochemical properties, which make them attractive as anode material in lithium batteries.