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3rd ELSICS Workshop and Bunsen-Colloquium: 
Energy Landscapes and Structure in Ion Conducting Solids, 
October 4-6, (2023), in Ulm 

 From October 4 to 6, (2023), the 3rd Workshop on Energy Landscape and Structure in Ion Conducting Solids (ELSICS) was held in the Villa Eberhardt in Ulm. This workshop was the national, annual meeting of the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) research unit FOR_5065: ELSICS. It was also assigned as a Bunsen-Colloquium by the DBG (Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft).

Approximately 35 participants discussed – in presence - the status and the progress in the field of ELSICS. The conference sessions focused on the topics of ion transport in the energy landscapes of amorphous, crystalline and bi-crystalline solid samples. Reflecting the conceptual approach of the research unit, the talks and the discussions covered experimental and theoretical studies of long and short range transport and its interrelation with long and short range structure and function.

The audience enjoyed a number of invited talks covering Ion Conduction for Electrochemical Energy Research (J. Maier), Multiscale Modeling of Cathode Materials (P. Kaghazchi), Probing Li Diffusion by Atom Probe Tomography (B. Gault), Diffusion Experiments with SIMS and Neutrons (H. Schmidt), Probing Alkalis in Battery Materials with APT (O. Cojocaru-Miredin), Impact of Nanoscale Percolation in Yttrium-Doped BaZrO₃ (M. Martin), Interplay of Structure and Energy Landscapes of Tilt Grain Boundaries (G. Dehm), Ion Motion and Reaction in Mixed Conducting Electrodes (J. Fleig), Energy Landscapes as a Tool to Understand the Thermodynamics and Dynamics of Complex Systems (A. Heuer).

These invited talks were complemented by contributed talks from within the research unit but also from outside. Seeds for intense discussions were joined talks from projects of FOR_5065 e.g. on the transport of ions single crystals and bi-crystals of SrTiO₃ combining the analysis of concentration depth profiles from a charge attachment induced transport (CAIT) secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) experiment with atomically resolved structure from high resolution electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and a theoretical study of migration pathways from density functional theory (DFT). These studies revealed the existence of two different bulk transport mechanisms as well as a direct measurement of grain boundary diffusion. A second example was a CAIT-SIMS study of the Li+ ion transport in Li₃B₇O₁₂ glasses analyzed i.) with a macroscopic Nernst-Planck Poisson formalism as well as ii.) with a microscopic hopping theory. Both approaches agree in the prediction of a significant concentration dependence of the diffusion coefficient of native ions.

More details regarding the conference, the invited speakers and the program are freely available under:
https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb15/for5065/meetings/third-elscis-meeting  
Additional information can be requested from the conference organizers under elsics@uni-marburg.de 

Spokesperson of the research unit is Prof. Karl-Michael Weitzel. The conference has been made possible by significant support from the German Science Foundation (DFG) but also the University of Ulm (Institute of Electrochemistry), the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft (DBG) and the Fonds of the chemical Industry (FCI). 

The 4th ELSICS workshops on the progress of the research in the field will be held as an International ELSICS conference in 2024. For future updates visit https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb15/for5065/meetings.

Participants of the 3rd ELSICS workshop in front of the conference location, the Villa Eberhardt, in Ulm.