Today Asia, and in particular China, is dominating the commercial battery market. Large incentives and resources are at present used within Europe and America to even out the Asian lead and become independent of Asia with respect to access to raw battery materials and production of battery cells and modules. Norway has a significant battery industry, and large industrial and academic projects aim to develop better, safer and more sustainable batteries. Norwegian battery R&D include both Li-ion battery chemistries as well as new battery technologies based on for instance sodium ions. In the development of new and better batteries, TEM is one of the most important tools to understand the relationships between structure and chemistry of the battery components and the electrochemical properties of the battery cells.  Often, TEM is the only tool that can describe the various degradation mechanisms in battery electrodes from the atomic to the mm scale. 

Projects within battery technology

• TEM is used to characterize the structure and chemistry of silicon- and graphite-based anodes. These advanced characterizations include studies of crystallinity, changes in morphology, the structure and chemistry of various coating layers, as well as build up of solid electrolyte interface layers as a function of various electrochemical cycling parameters. 
• In cathodes based on NMC or LNMO, TEM is used to study various degradation mechanisms that can potentially occur in these active materials during cycling. Loss of transitions metals during cycling, crystal structure changes at interfaces and surfaces, as well as delamination and fractures as a function of cycling conditions are studied and described.
• Various solid state battery chemistries are described across the entire cross-section of a battery cell 
• Both anode and cathode materials in Na-ion batteries are described by various TEM techniques in order to understand reversible and irreversible storage mechanisms

TEM has proven to be a crucial characterization tool to understand and improve the efficiency of both conventional and novel types of solar cells. The TEM Gemini Centre activities within solar cells include both studies of conventional silicon solar cell materials and new materials.

Previous and present research activities include:

• TEM characterization of InAs quantum dots in GaAs: measuring band gaps with electron energy loss spectroscopy.
• Electronic properties of interfaces within a nanowire-based solar cell TEM and advanced photon emission.
• TiO2-based solar cells, where TEM is used to describe crystal and grain structures, defects, dopant concentrations and precipitation of secondary phases
• High resolution STEM imaging and spectroscopy of various sigma grain boundaries in multi crystalline Si cells