Bavesh Rajaraman
Advisor: Prof. Faisal M. Alamgir

will defend a Master's thesis entitled,

Examining Layered Lithium-Ion Batteries Using X-ray Absorption/Emission Spectroscopy

On

Tuesday, July 8 at 9:00 a.m.
Love 295  and TEAMS
                                                                                         

Committee
           Prof. Faisal M. Alamgir – School of Materials Science and Engineering (advisor)
           Prof. Hailong Chen – School of Materials Science and Engineering
           Prof. Paul Kohl – School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Abstract
X-ray Emission Spectroscopy (XES) is a sister core-hole technique to X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), which arises as a consequence of core-hole quenching after the absorption has occurred. By capturing the emitted hard X-ray emitted during the core-hole decay, we can probe the electronic structure and local environment of the system. Measuring specific emissions originating from the quenching of core-holes from the valence orbital is known as Valence-to-Core emissions, which is rich in information about the nature of the hybridization and the chemical state. In this study, lab-scale XES/XAFS is used to study the structural and electronic changes occurring in layered transition metal oxide batteries. Together, these techniques can help track the total spin-state, oxidation state as well as local interatomic changes. Several additional insights are gained by using XES and XAFS together to find the band gap of the system, and its changes over the course of delithiation.