Dr. Makoto Aoki (Fuel Cell Nanomaterials Center researcher) received the GREEN Prize

　Dr. Makoto Aoki (Fuel Cell Nanomaterials Center researcher) received the GREEN Prize at the 13th GREEN Symposium at NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science) held on June 22 (Wed), 2016. This prize is given to young researchers who have made excellent achievements in terms of promoting green innovation and addressing the associated challenges.

　Dr. Aoki said, “It is indeed an honor to receive such an award. I am grateful to all of the people who supported my research. I will do my best in fuel cell research to get better results.”

Theme: Electrochemical lithiation/delithiation process of single crystalline silicon substrate

Abstract: Silicon (Si) is considered as a promising anode material for Li-based secondary batteries because of its high lithiation capacity. However, there are several problems, such as significant volume expansion/contraction due to lithiation/delithiation of Si, which causes degradation of the anode. In order to understand the mechanism of the lithiation/delithiation process of Si, in this research, the atomic level structure and electronic state of electrochemically lithiated/delithiated Si were revealed by use of a single crystalline Si substrate, which is atomically flat and has a well-defined structure.