IMPEDANCE MEASUREMENTS ON LI3 N SINGLE-CRYSTALS

Lithium nitride has been well known for about thirty years; but because of its tendency to react with water and oxygen, together with its low free enthalpy of formation it did not attract the interest of electrochemists though early work suggested Li-ion conduction in this binary Li compound. In recent months the rapidly accelerating interest in Li3N is due to the possibility of synthesizing poly- and monocrystalline Li3N in a way that it is stable in the atmosphere and has a very high Li-ionic conductivity perpendicular to the c-axis at room temperature. In addition the simple hexagonal structure of Li3N together with the clear evidence of N3- ions in its structural arrangement may explain the extraordinary kinetic hindrance to its electrolytic decomposition. In this paper impedance measurements on Li3N monocrystals with both ionically blocking and non-blocking electrodes are reported. It is shown that Li3N is a rather interesting and promising Li-ionic conductor. © 1979 Elsevier Sequoia S.A.