Comparison of LiCo0.97Mg0.03O2PLD film with bulk for the application of lithium micro-batteries

Pulsed laser deposition, PLD is a popular technique to produce thin films of a variety of materials ranging from metals to complex ceramics including polymers. High quality thin films with very large critical current densities were obtained in films made out of PLD compared to any other technique. In this paper we compare the bulk and laser deposited LiCo0.97Mg0.03O2, layered cathode material for lithium batteries. The cathode material was synthesized using soft combustion technique with glycine as the chelating agent. LiCo0.97Mg0.03O2 films were deposited on quartz substrates at 150mTorr of oxygen background. The films deposited at room temperature are amorphous and become crystalline by annealing at 500C. There are several reports on film deposition of LiMn2O4, its doped and structurally modified versions by rf sputtering. However to author's knowledge, there are no reports on PLD films. The bulk product and laser deposited film have been characterized by structural (XRD) and spectroscopic (FTIR, Raman) studies. Raman and FTIR measurements provide information on the local environment of the cationic sub lattice LiCo0.97Mg0.03O2 solid solutions.