Leveraging cryogenic electron microscopy for advancing battery design

The recent adoption of cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in the battery field has boosted the understanding of electrochemically driven phenomena in batteries, particularly on metal anodes, metastable phases, and associated interfaces. With the advances in battery research by cryo-EM since 2017, concerns have arisen due to the differences in sample preparation and transfer procedures that could yield an inconsistent dataset and contradicting interpretations. Herein, we review the development of cryo-EM and its successful landings in different branches within the battery field, demonstrating how the knowledge gained by cryo-EM has advanced the understanding of battery systems. We emphasize that the discrepancies in this area will be eventually minimized when the optimized workflows are established for different materials. We further put forward our best practices for sample preparation during cryo-EM measurements with an outlook on artificial intelligence assisted data collection and analysis workflow that will benefit the entire material science community at large.