To validate the universality of Al-F co-doping effect on other types of SEs, we synthesized Cl-rich Li-argyrodites with different Al-F doping contents,
i.e., Li
5.7-xP
1-xAl
xS
4.7–3xCl
1.3F
3x (
x = 0, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07, 0.1, and 0.15). The samples are sequentially designated as Cl13–0, Cl13–003, Cl13–005, Cl13–007, Cl13–010, and Cl13–015, respectively. The XRD (Fig. S9 in Supporting information) profiles show that the crystal structure of all samples is assigned to the argyrodite-type cubic structure (
F43
m). LiF and Li
8P
2S
9 impurity phases appear in the samples for
x ≥ 0.1. With increasing Al-F doping amount, the characteristic peaks of the main phase slightly shift to lower angles, indicating a successful substitution of P atoms (with a smaller ionic radius) by Al atoms in the lattice, leading to a lattice expansion [
27]. Fig. S10 (Supporting information) displays the Nyquist plots tested at room temperature for Li
5.7-xP
1-xAl
xS
4.7–3xCl
1.3F
3x. The impedances only show a negligible change upon Al-F doping. The room temperature ionic conductivity is 4.15 mS/cm for Cl13–0 and is 4.04 mS/cm for Cl13–007. Thus, the Al-F co-doping does not deteriorate the ion transport performance. The CCDs for Li
5.7-xP
1-xAl
xS
4.7–3xCl
1.3F
3x with selected
x are shown in
Fig. 5a and Fig. S11 (Supporting information). The value is only 1.0 mA/cm
2 for Cl13–0 (Fig. S11), while Cl13–007 can reach up to 1.7 mA/cm
2.
Fig. 5b shows the long-term Li plating/stripping on a Li|Cl13–007|Li symmetric cell at 0.5 mA/cm
2. The cell can well cycle for more than 2000 h. The Li||Li symmetric cells with Cl13–0 and Cl13–007 SEs were also assembled respectively and cycled at a current density of 0.1 mA/cm
2 to compare the polarization voltage (Fig. S12 in Supporting information). Comparing the voltage profiles, the cell using Cl13–007 demonstrates low polarization voltages than Cl13–0 SE. The voltage-increase for Cl13–007 is 3 mV, whereas for Cl13 is over 5 mV. The Li|Cl13–007|Li cell can run over 30 cycles (Fig. S13 in Supporting information) without short circuits at a current density of 1 mA/cm
2, whereas the Li|Cl13|Li cell suffers "hard" short circuits less than 4 cycles [
22]. These results suggest that the Cl13–007 SE possesses better long-term cycling stability and dendrite suppression capability compared with the Cl13–0 SE [
23,
60]. The SEM-EDS images collected on the cross-section of the interface are shown in Fig. S14 (Supporting information). At the Li/Cl13–007 interface, a Cl-rich layer mainly composed of LiCl interphase was detected. Previous studies have suggested that a LiCl-dominated SEI layer for sulfide SEs is conducive, serving as a buffering layer to stabilize the interface between Li and sulfide. Notably, a Li-Al alloy layer was observed on the Li surface of the Cl13–007 cell, which would play a role on manipulating uniform Li depositions during Li
+ plating/stripping. This scenario is consistent with the behavior observed in LZC-0.1AlF
3 above-mentioned. It is worth noting that the Li|Cl13–007|LZC-0.1AlF
3|Cl13–007|Li symmetric cell, using the SE combining LZC-0.1AlF
3 with Cl13–007, exhibits a high CCD of 3 mA/cm
2 (
Fig. 5c). When subjected to a long-term galvanostatic cycling under a high current density of 1 mA/cm
2, the symmetric cell can well work more than 300 cycles with high cycling stability without short-circuits (
Fig. 5d). This result indicates that a double-layer SE system with the combination of halide/sulfide is effective to suppress Li dendrites and enhance the electrochemical cycling performance. The primary reason for the enhanced performance of the bilayer electrolyte origins from sandwiching a less stable electrolyte between more stable electrolytes. This setup facilitates localized decomposition in the unstable electrolyte layer (LZC-0.1AlF
3 in this work), thereby preventing the growth of lithium dendrites [
50,
61].